US drones bombed suspected Al-Qaeda arms caches in a hilly region in Yemen's restive southern province of Abyan on Sunday, witnesses told AFP.
Six missiles targeted the suspected weapons hideouts in Jabal Khanfar, a hill overlooking the Abyan town of Jaar, which is controlled by Al-Qaeda militants, the witnesses said.
"Two American drones fired four missiles at Jabal Khanfar while two others were fired from the sea" in the Gulf of Aden, a local official told AFP. He did not provide further details.
Witnesses reported seeing columns of smoke billowing into the sky from the targeted locations and said that government buildings, now controlled by Al-Qaeda fighters, had been damaged. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The air strikes were carried out in the early evening, the witnesses said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2012 17:05
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"Suspected Al-Qaeda arms caches" would indicate a probable planned and approved target. Intelligence gained from persistent surveillance or other means would have elevated the hidey holes to the top of the targeting priority list. Same platform that did the bombing could also conduct post blast analysis or what we used to call the Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA).
On February 29, Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, penned a post celebrating the 100th closure of a coal-fueled power plant: Chicago's Crawford plant. He also boasts that the group's efforts have prevented 166 new coal-fueled power plants.
Power plants throughout the country are being closed because of onerous regulations being mandated by the EPA.
Not only are the EPA regulations aggressive, they are also invasive. The EPA wants a specific technology that will cost the ratepayers ten times more than similar technologies.
On March 2, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denied the request to put the new regulations on hold while the appeal is being considered.
Environmental groups believe the consumers have been "getting a free ride because the cost of electricity from these plants is artificially low."
With the Administration's permission, the environmentalists have a stranglehold on American energy policy. They are not apt to delay implementation. The EPA is pushing these regulations now because if President Obama does not get reelected, the Republican president will delay indefinitely or repeal the regulations altogether. The big question is who is selling the "specific technology" the EPA is demanding? I'd start with a list of OfA, DNC and Obama 2012 bundlers and work from there...
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a defiant TV speech Sunday in which he taunted the West, saying the Islamic Republic is unfazed by the threat of Western military action.
"As God is my witness, the Iranian nation will not give a damn for [your] bombs, warships and planes," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech in Karaj, west of Tehran, reported by the official IRNA news agency.
"They say all [options] are on the table. Well, let them rot there. You yourself will rot," he added.
The hard-line leader accused the US and other Western nations of bullying Iran, adding that the West "should talk politely, and recognize the rights of nations, and cooperate instead of showing teeth, and weapons and bombs."
#1
Apparently he doesn't know about Halliburton's secret weapons developments, such as Zombie reanimation, "Remote Jewing", herds of Veloci-raper dinosaurs and Hogzillas, "Monster X", and my favorite, "the thingy that makes you go 'SQUEEEE!'".
#2
They sure will rot in storage if Champ is reelected - We got to admit there is something in what the guy says - good assessment of Bambi's futile threats.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 14:49
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Both sides with the tough guy talk. Tough guys are just as scared as everybody else. America would benefit from having the same respect for nuke and non-nuke countries.
#6
"Let them rot there" > IMO this comment by Moud/Ahmadinejad supports my contention that as long as any US-NATO/Allied warships [ + airpower] stay offshore, + no ground invasion of Iran per se takes place, IRAN IS CONTENT TO CONTINUE ["as is"] WID DEV ITS NUCPROGS, ALA THE "JAPAN/EGYPT" MODELS. IOW, IRAN WILL GET ITS NUKES.
So did ancient Persia, so does modern Iran.
* TOPIX > [US Senator Carl] LEVIN: US SHOULD CONSIDER [imposing]NAVAL BLOCKADE ON IRAN.
* SAME, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > IRAN TO FIRE 11,000 MISSLES AT ISRAEL, US IFF ATTACKED: ENVOY.
#8
PAKISTAN DEFENCE FORUM > PENTAGON: NDN IS GREAT, BUT WE STILL NEED PAKISTAN.
Lest we fergit, Iran supposedly lays atop a "sea of oil", which strongly infers that as an Oil State it can weather the fluxes in [anti-US] world oil prices, + neither Russia nor China, etc. are likely to allow anything to interfere wid Iran's routine trade flows into or from the Gulf, be it by land, air, or sea.
STILL COMES DOWN TO THE US-VS-POLITICAL-LEGAL-ELECTORAL-JIHAD N AFPAK.
Lest we fergit II, the accused PAK AIR FORCE BGEN KHAN allegedly desired + conspired to set up an OVERT ISLAMIC/ISLAMIST STATE IN PAKISTAN, a Nuke-armed Muslim country many of whose Politicos + Military already covertly support Radical Islamism.
A US-Iran, or US-Israel-Iran, War need not begin wid Iran.
#9
JM. A fairly grim assessment, but most probably accurate...It rather clouds the harsh fog of war even more--and begs closer monitoring IMHO. atroll.
Internet spies triggered a security scare at Nato and in Britain after creating a fake Facebook account of its most senior commander to harvest personal details from his high-level friends.
Chinese hackers are thought to have been behind the plot, which saw a bogus page set up in the name of James Stavridis, Nato's Supreme Allied Commander.
Among those caught up in the scam included top brass in the British military and MoD officials, who unwittingly accepted false 'friend requests' from the account.
This, in turn, gave the hackers access to a mine of information, including e-mail addresses, names of family members, their movements and possibly even phone numbers, which could result in blackmail attempts.
It could also lead to the hackers trying to crack passwords on classified files as personal information may have been used on encrypted systems, it was reported by The Sunday Telegraph.
While it is highly unlikely any sensitive information would have been left on the social networking site by Nato staff, the incident is deeply embarrassing.
Nato was told of the account late last year and got it taken down by Facebook.
#1
In this day and age - of electronic governmental monitoring of personal activity, electronic payments and rampant identity theft - anyone who puts personal information on the internet is mildly retarded. Frankly, it's astonishing that an information sieve like Facebook has gotten so many individuals to cough up their personal details, and in so doing, attained a multi-billion dollar stock valuation. In future, I look forward to a company-ending class action lawsuit against this house of cards as a result of tens of thousands of Facebook dupes having their credit ruined by information thieves. Too bad the founders will have gotten their pound of flesh from deluded investors by then.
#2
I look forward to a company-ending class action lawsuit against this house of cards as a result of tens of thousandsmillions of Facebook dupes having their credit ruined by information thieves.
That's better.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
03/11/2012 18:53
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The United States Air Force has established two new aircraft squadrons to support the Presidential travel needs during the campaign season.
Operations for the two squadrons are to commence in April, and will run through the election. The aircraft and personnel will be released back to their original units after Nov. 2.
#1
Wow, I wouldn't have thought the Obama campaign could afford this.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/11/2012 13:24
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like he or his campaign are paying for it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2012 13:28
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#3
In the paragraph below, find the incredulous contradictions:
Aircraft and personnel are pre-positioned to support an expected surge in airlift so the Air Force is postured to more efficiently and effectively meet the needs of the commander in chief while remaining good stewards of taxpayer funds. During the 2004 election season, Banner Express operations saved more than $18 million, largely from fuel savings.
#4
The charade of Presidents doing their Constitutional duties while flying around the nation and just coincidently doing polital speeches and fundraisers has to stop. Just how stupid must the aristocrats in DC be to imagine the peasants can't discern what a ridiculous lie this has become. Champ has taken the Impreial arrogance of Washington's political class to levels undreamed of, just as the Wookie has taken regal presumptions in all her trips. At a time when real unemployment is above 15% and our decades of political and economic policy have deindistrialized us intoa pauper nation, these mutts spend like Croesus.
#5
Not sure you could get one Barry's Großer open coach Mercedes (large Mercedes) on a C-130. Must be the security detachment riding the C-130 troop seats.
#3
There were some articles from a Romanian defector (name eludes me ATM) who claimed that the Russians had a unit that specialized in exactly that kind of clean up operation.
Muslim career women in Britain are choosing to become involved in polygamous relationships because of a lack of suitable men.
Some of them even choosing to become second or third wives to married men, according to the Islamic Sharia Council.
The charity, based in Britain, gives legal guidance to Muslims and has said it is receiving a high number of queries from women struggling to find suitable partners.
Many of the women have also said they would prefer to hold down high-profile jobs rather than look after their husbands.
Taking more than one wife is illegal in the UK but men marry again in a nikah religious ceremony, allowing them to take up to four wives.
Mizan Raja, 35, who organises Muslim marriages around the world, told the Sunday Times, that he has had hundreds of calls in the past six months from women asking about becoming second wives.
Mr Raja said: 'The demand for these relationships is led by the women, not the men. In one generation women have become educated, entrepreneurial and professional.
'The Muslim community is struggling with this, how do you cope with women who wear trousers?'
He said that many Muslim men just wanted a 'homemaker' and to come home to a clean house and a plate of food on the table.
#1
Maybe this is the solution to the supermom problem. One wife has and raises the kids, while another is a money making professional, and the third is the housekeeper.
The trouble with this idea is that the women would quickly realize that the man is an unnecessary expense.
#2
Taking more than one wife is illegal in the UK but men marry again in a nikah religious ceremony, allowing them to take up to four wives.
The charity, based in Britain, gives legal guidance to Muslims and has said it is receiving a high number of queries from women struggling to find suitable partners.
Yeah, it's illegal. But, if you get caught, just start yelling about the Koran. That should scare the infidels off...
#3
For the sake of the children, one would want their mother to be the legal wife, and the career woman to legally be the mistress.
Clearly these women have not thought this through. While I am not a lawyer, it seems to me the career woman/Nth wife/legal mistress will be turning over her income to support another woman's kids, and getting no legal protections whatsoever, just for the opportunity to have a religiously sanctioned occasional bed partner.
In fact, wasn't that essentially the situation for the woman honour-killed with the daughters of the second wife up in Canada?
OBL's hiding place was an open secret. Obama made a deal with the Pakis for OBL's head. We can assume that this deal is something Bush was unwilling to make, and that Bammo did it to aid his reelection campaign.
#2
"There are negotiations being made that are going to answer all of your questions and solve all of your problems. That's all I can tell you right now. Carlo, you grew up in Nevada. When we make our move there you're going to be my right hand man."
After more than 100 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel over the weekend, the coastal enclaves terrorist rulers are seeking a ceasefire.
According to a report on Kol Yisrael radio on Saturday night, Hamas is trying to reach a ceasefire through Egyptian mediation.
Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nunu acknowledged in a conversation with Kol Yisrael said that the terror organizations Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, is handling the contacts with Egypt.
Al-Nunu said Hamas is awaiting Israels response to the request for a ceasefire, which will be delivered through Egypt. Al-Nunu said that if Israel stops attacking in Gaza, Hamas would be willing to discuss putting an end to the rocket fire.
Approximately 135 rockets had been fired from Friday afternoon and until 7:30 p.m. Saturday (Israel time), according to the IDF. 74 of the rockets struck within Israel. The Iron Dome system intercepted the rockets in 28 out of 31 attempts to do so.
Eight Israelis have been wounded by the rockets. Most suffered light to moderate wounds. One, a foreign worker, was seriously injured on Friday evening and was taken for treatment at the Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva.
#3
Al-Nunu said Hamas is awaiting Israels response to the request for a ceasefire, which will be delivered through Egypt. Al-Nunu said that if Israel stops attacking in Gaza, Hamas would be willing to discuss putting an end to the rocket fire.
Once again, the Paleos offer nothing for something.
#2
No apologies warranted, Besoeker; yours is a much more informative update, not a duplicate. And it is a big story, so there will need to be more updates as the day and days go on.
#4
Yes, I noticed she had an evil look when I saw her face. Sometimes makeup can ruin the looks of a person fast. She looks much better without makeup.
#11
American troops have been killed, 2 or more at a time, over and over during the past three weeks. The US Commander in Chief apologizies to the so called cause and says he diffused the situation as 2 by 2 at a time more American troops continue to be slaughtered. AND the ROE at the moment is to do nothing in retsaliation as 2 by 2, day by day, more of our guys get executed by the Afghans. What in the hell did the Hussein Regime expect. Regardless, the response will continue to be outrageous by the Hussein Regime.
Yes, DO PRAY for our young men and women in this hell hole being made worse by the Hussein Regimeam
Posted by: George Ebbeamp4828 ||
03/11/2012 22:06
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Israel will continue air strikes against Gaza "as long as necessary," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, giving no indication that a ground operation was likely for now.
"We extracted a high price from them and will continue to do so," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. "We will act as long as necessary."
His comments came as Israeli war planes carried out four air strikes on Gaza on Sunday morning, bringing the death toll in three days of clashes to 18.
Violence between Israel and Gaza militants erupted on Friday afternoon when an Israeli strike killed the leader of the ultra-hardline Popular Resistance Committees, sparking a bloody cross-border exchange.
Since then, militants fired 124 rockets at Israel, of which 68 were Qassams and 44 were the longer-range Grad variety, a defence ministry statement said.
In response, the air force carried out 26 air raids, 15 of which targeted militants who were in the act of firing on Israel.
The Iron Dome air defence system set up around the southern cities of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheva intercepted 30 rockets, it said.
A military court acquitted on Sunday an army doctor who was charged with carrying out a forced virginity test on a female detainee during protests last year, a court source said.
Samira Ibrahim, an activist, had said she was forced to undergo a test in March. Her case and other similar ones stoked anger against the generals who took control of Egypt after Hosni Mubarak was driven from office on February 11 by a popular uprising.
The source said Ahmed Adel, a doctor conscripted to the army, was acquitted of testing Ibrahim. Egypt's state news agency also carried the report, adding that the court said it issued the ruling because of conflicting witness accounts.
Reports of an early morning explosion have again rocked Jos with many feared dead. The explosion occurred at about 10:30 am at St. Finbars Catholic Church in Rayfield, an exclusive neighborhood. It is the first major attack in that area of town which is usually heavily guarded by soldiers and the Joint Task Force (JTF).
Early eyewitness accounts say that the nubmer of casualties is extremely high with the blast occurring during Sunday mass. Mayhem ensued as soldiers began to fire indiscriminately at supposed attackers with many onlookers fleeing and ducking for cover.
The scene at St. Finbars remains out of control as emergency services are yet to arrive on the scene and sporadic shots are still being reported.
At least three people have been killed in a suspected suicide car bombing at a Catholic church in the restive central Nigerian city of Jos, officials say.
The car was apparently stopped before it could enter the church compound, one report said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.
A bombing at a Jos church two weeks ago killed three people and injured nearly 40. Islamist militants from Boko Haram said they carried out that attack.
Emergency officials were assisting the victims at St Finbar's church in the Rayfield area, a spokesman for the national emergencies agency said.
Three people were confirmed as dead - in addition to the bomber - and several others were in a critical condition, spokesman Yushau Shuaib told AFP news agency.
"The bomb exploded before he [the bomber] could get to the church," he added.
Other reports put the number of dead at eight to 10 people, including soldiers stationed at the church.
Pam Ayuba, a spokesperson for Plateau state where Jos is located, told Associated Press that the blast damaged the church's roof, blew out its windows and destroyed a portion of the perimeter fence.
Security forces have now cordoned off the area around the church.
Plateau state lies on the fault line between Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and Christian and animist south.
It has witnessed numerous inter-communal clashes in recent years and Islamist group Boko Haram has targeted several churches in Jos, the state capital.
Two men were killed in southern Yemen when a bomb they planned to use in an attack on government forces exploded accidentally late on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
"The bodies of the two were ripped apart in the explosion, which happened before they were able to execute their attack," the ministry said in the statement posted on its website.
Yemeni security forces, fighting a growing Islamist insurgency, said they had also detained four Somali men suspected of belonging to the al Shabaab militant group near the site of the explosion. There was no indication that they were linked to the bomb plot, the statement said.
The al Qaeda-allied Somali group had sent 300 armed men to fight alongside the Yemen-based wing of the militant network, it said. The four Somalis were captured on the road between the southern provinces of Lahej and Abyan.
BALASORE: The DRDO is likely to conduct the much-awaited crucial test of submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) K-15 from an underwater platform off Andhra Pradesh coast on Sunday.
The test was rescheduled from March 4 as the communication alignment could not take place properly due to high tide in the sea. As part of the coordinated mission, the missile will be test-fired from a pontoon (replica of a submarine) positioned nearly 20 feet undersea.
An official said the cables for communication between the pontoon and a ship (makeshift control room) could not be laid due to heavy current in the sea and high tide on full moon day.
The DRDO has, in fact, prepared for twin trials of this indigenously built nuclear capable missile. The second missile will be test-fired within seven days of the trial of the first one.
The test seems crucial for India since the missile could not be tested last year even after a series of attempts. A scheduled test was deferred several times due to technical glitches in the missile system.
The DRDO is eyeing for the success of the missile as only Russia, the USA, France, UK and China have been successful in firing nuclear tipped missiles from air, land and undersea.
Having a strike range of about 700 km, the K-15 missile is 10 metres in length and a metre in diameter. Its launch weight is about 10 tonnes. After its induction, the missile will equip the country's first nuclear-powered submarine ANS Arihant.
A scientist said K-15 combines aspects of both cruise and ballistic missiles, which use multiple-stage rockets to exit the atmosphere and re-enter in a parabolic trajectory.
Posted by: john frum ||
03/11/2012
08:15 ||
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that'll twist Pak Army/ISI panties
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2012 12:42
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#2
China's too, Frank.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/11/2012 16:08
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A military court on Sunday acquitted an army doctor who was charged with conducting a forced virginity test on a female detainee during last year's protests.
Samira Ibrahim had said she was forced to undergo a test in March. She was one of seven women who said they had been forced to undergo humiliating tests to find out if they were virgins while detained by the military a year ago. She was given a one-year suspended prison term for insulting authorities, joining an illegal assembly and breaking a curfew.
Ahmed Adel, a doctor conscripted to the army, was acquitted of testing Ibrahim. The court said it issued the ruling because of conflicting witness accounts.
Outside the court, around 30 protesters shouted, Down down military rule and We demanded dignity and change. Instead they stripped our girls in Tahrir.
Controversy over the virginity tests was inflamed after a general was quoted by CNN last year as saying tests were done to prove the women were not virgins when they were detained, so they could not say they were raped in detention. An army official later denied the comments were made.
A civilian court issued a ruling in December ordering the army to stop the practice and a military judicial official then said cases of reported forced virginity tests had been transferred to the Supreme Military Court.
#2
Once he pointed to a picture of (Indonesian) President Sukarno and said "I hope I will grow up to become someone like him."
I'd vote for him as President of Indonesia.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/11/2012 10:46
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#3
Jefferson's sex slave remember "little tommy".
Sarah "Sally" Hemings (Charles City County, Virginia, circa 1773 Charlottesville, Virginia, 1835) was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson through his wife's inheritance.
Israel: Jihad Islami will pay dear if Fajr missiles fired. US, Egypt seek ceasefire
Israel has passed a stern warning to the Palestinian Jihad Islami shooting missiles from Gaza for the third day to expect Israel punishment on a different scale from the current surgical air strikes if they dare fire the Fajr surface missiles supplied them by Iran, DEBKAfile reports. The warning was relayed Sunday, March 11, through Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Murad Muwafi who is working with Washington to halt the Gaza violence.
The Iran-backed Jihad has in its arsenal Fajr 5 missiles whose range is 110 kilometers and Fajr 3 which has a 60-kilometer reach. They bring into range Israels urban, commercial and population hub cities between Tel Aviv and Rehovoth, which are outside the range of the Grads and Qassams, more 110 of which were fired from Gaza since Friday.
Military sources told DEBKAfile that the Jihad terrorists are aiming for a spectacular, multi-fatality strike in a major Israeli city before ending this round of violence on order to strut as victors in Palestinian and Middle East public eyes. This ambition has been frustrated for three days by the Israeli invention, the Iron Dome interceptor of short-range missiles, which has saved important towns like Beersheba and the ports of Ashdod and Ashkelon from casualties and serious damage by intercepting the Grads before they land.
Islami Jihad tacticians are thought to be wracking their brains for some gadget capable of disarming the Iron Dome batteries.
They efforts of Gen. Muwafi to negotiate a ceasefire are complicated by not knowing whether Jihad Islami went into action against Israel on its own initiative although the victim of Israels targeted killing Friday, March 9, was not one of its members, only the Popular Resistance Committees chief Zuheir al-Qaisi or on instructions from its masters in Tehran and Damascus to promote their own interests.
The general assumption in Cairo and Washington is that the Jihad chiefs jumped in at first without asking for permission. But after 110 missiles pounded Israeli without incurring serious retribution, the decision about carrying on passed to Iran and Syria.
Both have an interest in a relatively low-intensity Palestinian missile offensive continuing against Israel.
Tehran sees it as a card to play at the nuclear talks with the six powers opening in Istanbul next month. It would show them that Iran is capable of generating a war situation in the Middle East without risk of a confrontation with the United States.
The Assad regime would typically use the Gaza Strip violence to turn the glare of international and Arab publicity away from its savage crackdown on the opposition and show the Israeli military to be the real persecutors of Arab civilians.
Gen. Muwafis queries have brought no responses from the Palestinian side and so it is hard for the American and Egyptian mediators to judge which way the wind is blowing in Damascus and Tehran.
Amid the uncertainty about the players behind the Gaza violence and their motives, DEBKAfiles military sources foresee a Palestinian war of attrition stretching out into the next couple of months. Unless halted by a ceasefire, it could escalate sharply if Jihad introduces Fajr missiles to its operations and./or if Israel decides to send its army into the Gaza Strip and finally root out the missile threat Palestinian extremists have been wielding against Israeli civilians for a decade.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012
07:39 ||
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The map does not include the heavier Fajr missiles which may reach Telaviv.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 14:34
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Agreed, Elder of Zion. Which is Debka's -- and your -- point.
This sounds ugly. And not surprising.
A U.S. service member has been detained after shooting Afghan civilians in Kandahar province, the U.S. military said Sunday. The BBC reported that at least three people were killed.
A statement from the military in Kabul did not say how many casualties there were Reports are as high as 16
or what the circumstances were. It directed inquiries on the casualties to the Afghan Ministry of Interior.
"This is a deeply regrettable incident and we extend our thoughts and concerns to the families involved," the statement said.
The BBC report said the soldier shot the civilians after walking off his base, then surrendered to U.S. military authorities.
#1
I am certain that this person, especially if he is in American custody, will be given a fair court martial and, if found guilty, punished appropriately.
Unlike the Afghanis who murdered Americans.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/11/2012 3:13
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#2
There is better coverage out there now, if a mod wants to substitute with this one, for instance.
#3
Bottom line: A SSG with severe PTSD, apparently, has a nervous breakdown, leaves his base, armed, and goes on a killing spree in an Afghan town. Then he returns to base and turns himself in.
If this is a typical case, I suspect that he has long been complaining of PTSD, which was ignored by his command, who likely accused him of malingering. Unless his command immediately destroys the evidence, I would hazard to guess that he had pending Article 15 or even more serious charges pending.
The real nightmare will be if he complained to a Chaplain or medical types who didn't destroy their records. That will be the SHTF court martial scenario.
#5
The only thing we know about this for certain is that it is not, in the slightest degree and by thought, word, deed, or implication, the Commander in Chief's fault.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/11/2012 12:56
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#6
Could be more to this story than we think. We've heard horror stories of what some of the "Enlightened" families do over there to family members. With us pulling out, the local governments positions, and the unwillingness to act in general against the locals on our part for whatever reason, one soldier may have had enough. This may be more Street Justice than PTSD.
16 dead, 5 more wounded, and it happened in TWO villages. Then he calmly strolls back to command and turns himself in?
Posted by: Charles ||
03/11/2012 14:05
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#7
Reading between the lines on Yon's posts, I am suspecting this may have been a Special Forces soldier going off the deep end.
[An Nahar] Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal on Saturday told his Arab and Russian counterparts that a Russian-Chinese veto of a U.N. resolution condemning Syria allowed the regime's "brutality" to continue. He sez that like he's surprised...
The stand of "the countries that thwarted the U.N. Security Council resolution and voted against the resolution of the General Assembly on Syria gave the Syrian regime a license to extend its brutal practices against the Syrian people, without compassion or mercy," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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[Dawn] The Human Rights Commission of Pakistain (HRCP) on Saturday expressed its concern over reports of forced conversion and marriage of Hindu girls in Sindh -- 'on average 25 cases a month' -- and urged the authorities concerned to ensure protection to the minorities.
HRCP vice chairperson Amarnath Motumal and council members Prof Badar Soomro, Inder Ahuja and Asad Iqbal Butt told journalists at a presser that the culprits were benefiting from loopholes in the existing laws.
They called for enactment of new comprehensive laws in order to restore the sense of security in the community.
Relatives of four girls who were allegedly kidnapped recently -- Rinkle Kumari, Dr Lata Kumari, Asha Mohandas and Bharti Naraindas -- also appeared before the media and complained that the police extended to them no help while the subordinate judiciary did not appear helpful either.
"The culprits are well-armed and enjoy the support of influential religious people," they said.
The HRCP activists stressed that the police should register an FIR as soon as the parents or relatives of kidnap victims approached them with a complaint. "If a kidnapped adult girl is recovered and produced in court, she should be sent to Darul Amman immediately for a period equal to her captivity, or for at least one month, before she is asked to record her first statement. Then she should be asked to decide whether she wants to go with her parents/relatives or with alleged kidnapper/s," they said. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... they added, if the kidnapped girl was a minor, she should immediately be reunited with her parents.
The HRCP activists said that there could be no objection if anyone embraced Islam of their own accord, but such a person should be at liberty to meet his or her parents and satisfy them that it was not a forced decision.
"But in the case of the four girls, they were not allowed to meet their parents anymore and this proves that they are under pressure," they argued.
Speaking about the growing menace of kidnappings, forced marriages and forced conversions, they said that Hindus now tended to marry off their girls as soon as they reached adulthood or migrate to some other country.
The rights activists deplored that even President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... 's orders about the recovery of kidnapped Hindu girls were not being followed by the law-enforcement agencies.
"The state must fulfil its primary responsibility of protecting the citizens' right to live, and follow and profess their religion," they stressed.
Prof Soomro told the media that it was strange that Hindus converting to Islam were almost always maidens of tender years and not elderly people.
Rinkle Kumari's father, Nandlal, who is a schoolteacher, narrated his ordeal after the disappearance of his daughter. He said he was driven from pillar to post when he approached the police to lodge an FIR of her kidnapping. Finally when the FIR was registered, he alleged, he had to face harassment as the court area was surrounded by heavily armed religious activists. He alleged that the court acted in haste and handed over his daughter to the police and eventually allowed her to go with her 'kidnapper'.
"My wife and other daughters were not allowed to meet Rinkle."
Dr Lata Kumari's father, Dr Ramesh Kumar, a resident of Jacobabad, said that his daughter had been to Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... in connection with her advanced studies when she was kidnapped by a man, said to be a judge's son.
A resident of Lyari, Naraindas, a driver, said his daughter, Bharti, used to go to an industrial home in the neighbourhood to learn sewing and embroidery. She was kidnapped by a son of a policeman, he alleged. He said that Bharti was a minor -- born in
1996 -- and could not have a freewell marriage.
Ramesh Kumar, a relative of 16-year-old girl Asha Mohandas, who hails from Jacobabad, said she used to go to a beauty parlour for training. He alleged that she was kidnapped from the parlour.
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#1
A few life terms sprinkled liberally should sort out this problem. Coupled with a few executions of mullahs for incitement to murder public officials, of course. But then again, this is Pakistan...
About six months ago, the Pakistain Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in Islamabad published a paper by eminent demographer Dr Durr-e-Nayab, which estimated the size of the middle class in the country.
As Dr Nayab postulates, to answer that question one first has to define what one means by middle class. She starts off by looking at standard economic definitions of what constitutes the middle class and applies a range of these definitions to the data to see how Pakistain fares. She uses 15 formulae, ranging from the definition of the middle class as those with 75 to 125% of the median income, to expenditure from $2 to $20 per person per day, to double the poverty line. Her results differ widely, ranging from a finding that there is no middle class in Pakistain, to the finding that 60% of the population can be defined as middle class.
Dr Nayab then goes on to develop a weighted composite index, which goes beyond income-related measures and includes variables such as education (at least one person in the household should have a college degree for the household to be classified as middle class); house ownership and availability of utilities and sanitation facilities; movable assets (ownership of some consumer durables); and the nature of occupation of head of household or principal earner (manual or non-manual).
It is hard to see how a group that spends a fifth of its food expenditure on a staple can also be an engine for growth
This composite index yields results that seem more intuitive Dr Nayab found that in 2007/08, 41.9% of the population of Pakistain belonged to the "lower-lower class" or to be more blunt, the poor. This proportion rose to 55% when only rural areas were considered. Aspirants to "middle-classism" constituted 23% of the population, while "climbers" who are likely to get there constituted another 15% or so. The "hard-core" middle class remained small at 4.3% of the population. But Dr Nayab's multiple classification of middle class makes more sense sociologically, as it seems more realistic to think of the middle class itself as a series of "layers."
The upshot of all this is that under Dr Nayab's construction of an expanded middle class that is defined not just by income, but by certain social features also, 35% or about a third of Pakistain's population can be considered as falling into this category (we are leaving out the lowest class and the aspirants here, as well as the privileged). That means that the middle class in Pakistain consists of about 60 million people - a sizable number indeed. Further, Dr Nayab postulates that this number has been growing over time, so one should expect this number to keep growing, possibly at a faster rate than the rate of growth of the population.
The implications of this finding are enormous. If, as sociologists and economists believe, the middle class is at the vanguard of change in any society, and indeed propels progress, than Pakistain is positioned well to make the proverbial "great leap" forward. Politicians like Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... , whose support base is said to be largely centered around the urban middle class, should also be heartened.
The problem arises when Dr Nayab's findings are interpreted in a purely economic/income centric framework. Many of the commentaries on the paper have been effusive about how Pakistain's middle class of 60 million constitutes a formidable market, and is a boon for manufacturers and service providers. After all, consumers who can afford to buy toiletries, consumer durables, acquire a range of assets, and want to spend on the occasional entertainment are the backbone of any economy. Growth in China and India has been predicated, along with growing export volumes, on the size of the two countries' domestic markets.
But as Dr Nayab is at pains to point out, her classification of the middle class is not by income alone - in fact she stresses the need to make a distinction between "middle-income" and "middle class." In her classification, the 35% who fall into the middle class may or may not have the disposable income needed to generate a spurt in aggregate demand.
Nevertheless, the paper has an optimistic tone and a positive message. According to its findings, Pakistain has a larger middle class (in terms of proportion of the total population) than India (where the size of the middle class is estimated to be about 25%). This in itself is an interesting finding given that Pakistain's annual average GDP growth rate from 2000 to 2007 was 4.7%, while India's was 7.7%. But this result (that Pakistain's middle class is bigger than India's in terms of proportion of the population) was also touted in an earlier study by the Asian Development Bank (in a paper by Natalie Chun). If we believe that, then given that India's (apparently smaller) emerging middle class is repeatedly touted as a growth engine in economic literature, Pakistain too should experience some of the positive impacts of this development.
As is often the case in this country, the problem is that what the data shows is often contradictory in itself, and is not borne out by what one observes on the streets.
Although Dr Nayab has added on non-money metric measures to her composite index, her core data is still expenditure based. The HIES dataset of 2007/08, which was the one used by Dr Nayab, showed that poverty incidence in Pakistain was of the order of 17% (at a time when poverty in the US, admittedly using a different yardstick, but nevertheless; was estimated at 15%). But the same dataset also shows that the third income quintile (which would roughly correspond to the middle class) allocated 21% of its monthly food expenditure to the purchase of cereals alone. It is hard to see how a group that spends a fifth of its food expenditure on a staple (as opposed to spending on meat, milk and vegetables for instance) can also be an engine for growth. Real wages declined after the mid 2000s, and unemployment was stagnant. Support prices had not been raised then, as they were post 2008 (a move that undoubtedly benefited rural incomes). None of this meshes with an emergent, prosperous middle class or for that matter, a significant dip in poverty.
Having said that, researchers are constrained to use whatever data is available to them, and to do the best they can. Dr Nayab has made a significant contribution to the literature by using a sound methodology, and doing a robust analysis. It is a pity that the raw data does not hold up when scrutinized..
Continued on Page 49
BEIRUT: President Bashar Assad told UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday that no political solution was possible in Syria while terrorist groups were destabilizing the country.
Syria is ready to make a success of any honest effort to find a solution for the events it is witnessing, state news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling his guest.
No political dialogue or political activity can succeed while there are armed terrorist groups operating and spreading chaos and instability, the Syrian leader said after about two hours of talks with the former UN secretary-general.
While they discussed Annans peace mission, Syrian troops were assaulting the northwestern city of Idlib, a rebel bastion.
Regime forces have just stormed into Idlib with tanks and heavy shelling is now taking place, said an activist contacted by telephone, the sound of explosions punctuating the call.
There was no immediate comment from Annan after his meeting with Assad, aimed at halting bloodshed that has cost thousands of lives since a popular uprising erupted a year ago.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Annan in Cairo earlier in the day, told the Arab League his country was not protecting any regime, but did not believe the Syrian crisis could be blamed on one side alone. He called for a cease-fire and humanitarian aid access, but Qatar and Saudi Arabia sharply criticized Moscows stance.
Annan also planned to meet Syrian dissidents before leaving Damascus on Sunday.
Brilliant idea. Pencilneck's goons will track the meeting and whack the dissidents the moment Annan hops back into his Land Cruiser.
He has called for a political solution, but the opposition says the time for dialogue is long gone.
We support any initiative that aims to stop the killings, but we reject it if it is going to give Bashar more time to break the revolution and keep him in power, Melham Al-Droubi, a Saudi-based member of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the exiled Syrian National Council, told Reuters by telephone.
We hope that Annan convinces Bashar to stop the killings, step down and call for a parliamentary election, he said, expressing skepticism that Assad would respond positively.
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Thora Birch aka Jane Burnham in "American Beauty (1999)" aka Enid in "Ghost World (2001)" aka Liz Dunn in "The Hole (2001)" aka Sally Ryan in "Patriot Games (1992)" aka Empress Savina in "Dungeons & Dragons (2000)" aka Barbara Hoffman in "Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009)" (age 30)
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/11/2012 14:56
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#7
Yes, I noticed she had an evil look when I saw her face. Sometimes makeup can ruin the looks of a person fast. She looks much better without makeup.
Over 100 rockets and mortar shells fall on Israel since Friday; school canceled in all towns between 7-40 km from Gazoo Strip; 16 Paleostinians killed in IDF responses; Barak expects several days of violence.
Over 100 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel from the Gazoo Strip over the weekend and 16 Paleostinians were killed after violence broke out Friday following Israel's assassination of a top terrorist.
Rockets maimed eight people on Friday evening. In the Eshkol region, a 40-year-old man was maimed by shrapnel, a second man was moderately maimed by shrapnel in his stomach, and a third was lightly injured..
The IDF Home Front Command along with the heads of a number of local authorities in the South decided on Saturday night to cancel school in all towns and cities located between 7 km. and 40 km. of the Gazoo Strip.
Due to the decision, approximately 200,000 children will stay home on Sunday. The ban applies to Ashkelon, Ashdod, Beersheba, Netivot, Sderot, Kiryat Malachi, Gedera, Rahat, Yavne, Lakiya and the Gan Yavne Regional Council.
The IAF successfully struck 10 terrorist cells as they were planning to fire rockets into Israel as well as eight other targets throughout Gazoo. All of the dead were known terrorists, the IDF said.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak predicted that the round of violence would last another couple of days.
Schools in the western Negev that are within 7 km. of the Gazoo Strip will hold class as usual, as they have the necessary reinforcement to protect against rockets, the Home Front Command said.
The violence started on Friday afternoon when Israel Air Force craft bombed a car in Gazoo, killing Zuhair Qaisi, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees, and another top terrorist in the organization who was recently released in the Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange.
The IDF said it decided to bomb Qaisi's car due to intelligence that he was plotting a large terrorist attack along the border with Egypt, similar to the one the PRC carried out last August that killed eight Israelis. The IDF decided on Friday to close Route 12 -- which runs along the border with Egypt -- due to fears that the planned attack might still take place.
While most of the rockets fired from Gazoo were shortrange Kassams, some were long-range Grad-model Katyushas that succeeded in hitting 40 km. from the Gazoo Strip. The short-range rockets were mostly fired by the PRC and the long-range rockets by Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... The three Iron Dome batteries deployed in Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba succeeded in interpreting 27 rockets fired from Gazoo out of 30 that they tried to shoot down, marking a record-high interception rate of 90 percent.
The IAF successfully struck 10 terrorist cells as they were planning to fire rockets into Israel as well as eight other targets throughout Gazoo. All of the dead were known terrorists, the IDF said.
Touring an Iron Dome battery on Saturday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak predicted that the round of violence would last another couple of days.
"We will not allow people to attack Israeli citizens," Barak said. "We will take action against anyone who tries to launch a rocket or an attack and they will pay a price. No one has immunity."
The flareup in Gazoo is the worst since October. The escalating violence drew appeals for a cease-fire from the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , the West Bankbased Paleostinian Authority and Egypt. IDF sources said that Israel was in constant touch with Egypt.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... . "I urge all sides to reestablish calm," she said in a statement.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammad Kamal Amr told state news agency MENA that his government was "making crucial calls for an immediate end to this Israeli escalation, to end bloodshed of our brothers."
Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,front manSami Abu Zuhri ...a senior front man for Hamas. Zuhri gained notoriety in 2006 when he dropped his money belt containing somewhere between 640,000 and 900,000 euros, which was confiscated by Paleostinian security and customs officials at a routine border crossing from Egypt to Gazoo. The news brought competing Hamas and Fatah forces to the crossing checkpoint for an epic face-making and hollering contest... called for Egyptian aid, saying Gazoo was "sinking in darkness and in blood."
In the Gazoo Strip, thousands attended funerals for the dead gunnies on Saturday, listening to speeches calling for Dire Revenge.
Gazoo officials said Israeli troops opened fire on mourners at a burial for an Islamic Jihad gunman attended by hundreds at a cemetery near the Israeli frontier fence, wounding four. The IDF did not have an immediate comment on the incident.
Nabil Abu Rdainah, a front man for PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... , blamed Israel for the violence and called for Western pressure to halt it.
"This Israeli escalation in Gazoo is completely condemned and we urge the world community, and the Quartet ... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy.... [of Middle East power brokers], especially the United States, to put enough pressure on the Israeli government to stop this escalation," Rdainah told Rooters Television.
An IDF front man said that the IAF has hit a weapons storage facility in the Gazoo Strip. The strike came in response to rockets fired from Gazoo. According to the statement, the target was hit directly.
"Hamas, which uses the other groups to carry out acts of terror against the State of Israel, will be held responsible for any future operation that the IDF choose to launch in order to eliminate the threat of terror and restore relative calm to the region," the IDF added.
#1
The IDF finally gets a field day for testing the Iron Dome system under real batlefield conditions.
not to trifle with the nice target practice the IAF gets.
Both very useful in preparation for the upcoming war in the ME.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 7:53
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I like how the strike occurred right after Bibi came to visit the USA.
My question is whether Zuhair Qaisi was the Iranians guy in Gaza, and thisis all about taking Iranian sponsored cells out. A major FU to the Iranian intelligence service.
Then, to top it off, an excellent counter missile demonstration by Iron Dome. That should bring in some sales.
Excellent review of the events in Somalia and worth the time to read.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] On the morning of December 3, 2009, an al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban... krazed killer dressed as a woman walked into a graduation ceremony at the Hotel Shamo in downtown Mogadishu and detonated his payload.
In the wake of the blast, 24 people lay dead, including three cabinet ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.
It looked like a big propaganda coup for al-Shabaab considering the number of senior government officials either killed or injured.
Instead, it proved to be one of the critical turning points that led to the decline of the krazed killer group and its eventual retreat from Mogadishu under pressure from African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops.
UNRWA: Serving your "refugee" needs. For over sixty years...
Filippo Grandi, commissioner general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, told a news conference that UNRWA is especially targeting the newly emerging economic and political powers including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Boys, have I got a deal for you...
Sounds like a hard sell. Wonder why that is?
He expressed hope that these countries and others would "step up to the plate" and share the burden of financing UNRWA's main operations with the current donors, including the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia and many countries in Western Europe. C'mon, folks, step up to the plate. Think of the benefits.
OK. Like?
Well. There's....ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...gimme a minute......
I'll get back to you on that.
Grandi praised Brazil for contributing $7.5 million for UNRWA operations in Gaza this year and India for contributing in the last few years and expressed hope they would become permanent donors. Nice Olympics ya got there. Be a shame if something happened to screw them up...
He said China is not a major donor to UNRWA and expressed hope that Beijing will "accompany its very good political support with some financial contribution as well." Fortune cookie say: "Very good political support much cheaper than financial contribution".
He said there is a risk that the Palestinian issue will get eclipsed "because so much else is going on in the region" and that "within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the refugee question gets further eclipsed." Oh, no. Not that...
Asked whether any Palestinian refugees had been involved in the yearlong conflict in Syria or had left the country, Grandi said: "we have not seen any significant movements." Of course, we haven't looked...
"There has been no instance of involvement, and my appeal is for this situation to continue," he said. "It's very, very important that the Palestinians continue as a group of vulnerable refugees to be isolated and to remain outside of the conflict." They must play their part in this internationl kabuki thing. And we'll play ours.
#1
Muslims want foreign infidels to stay out of the Middle East, but they'll take the money...
Posted by: American Delight ||
03/11/2012 11:20
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#2
It's only early March, and they are already out with hat in hand.
Business is booming in Gaza, thanks to the tunnels under the Egyotian border, with official unemployment before the latest outburst down to 28%. This despite a significant fall in international donations to the various relief-for-Palestinians organizations, showing them to be unnecessary after all.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The number of professed Catholics in the world has grown by 15 million, thanks to increases in Africa and Asia, the Vatican said Saturday, unveiling the latest edition of its yearbook. Wonder how the Episcopalians are doing?
The conservative branch is doing well, with many American congregations choosing to move from Western bishoprics to African ones in addition to conversions in Africa and elsewhere. The liberal branch is shrinking, as I understand it.
Giving figures for 2010, the Vatican said the faithful now totalled 1.196 billion, keeping pace with world population growth, but numbers had fallen off in Europe and Latin America.
The greatest proportion of Catholics was still in Latin America at 28.34 per cent, down from 28.54 per cent in 2009, followed by Europe with 23.83 per cent against 24.05.
The Church gained ground in Africa, where its congregations rose from 15.15 to 15.55 per cent and in Southeast Asia, up from 10.41 to 10.87 per cent.
The percentage of baptised Catholics in the world remained stable at 17.5, according to the yearbook presented to Pope Benedict XVI by Vatican number two, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone and his deputy Angelo Becciu.
Numbers of priests also rose in Africa and Asia, by 1,695 and 761 respectively, but fell by 905 in Europe.
Similarly, seminarians training to be priests increased by 14.2 per cent in Africa, 13 per cent in Asia and 12.3 per cent in the Pacific regions, but were down 10.4 per cent in Europe and 1.1 per cent in the Americas.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The us Episcopal church is withering, but the world Anglican church is growing by leaps and bounds, especially in Africa, where blacks are discarding Islam and becoming Anglicans in such numbers that Riyadh is scared to death.
But some of the African Anglican Bishops and Archbishops are becoming as powerful as princes.
Their timing was superb as well, with the schism among US Episcopalians and Anglicans. When the liberals drove the conservatives out, they joined "African missionary" Anglican churches, which are sending huge amounts of money to Africa.
Right when they needed it to pay for their explosive growth.
WASHINGTON: A 13,600 kg bunker buster bomb designed to smash through some 65 meters of concrete before exploding is a "great weapon" that could be used by US forces in a clash with Iran over its nuclear program, an Air Force general said late on Thursday.
Not while Champ is present, we won't...
Lt. Gen. Herbert Carlisle, Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations, said the massive ordnance penetrator, which the military began receiving only last year, is part of the US arsenal available for strikes against countries like Iran, which has some buried nuclear facilities.
"The massive ordnance penetrator is a great weapon. We are continuing to improve that. It has great capability now and we are continuing to make it better. It is part of our arsenal and it will be a potential if we need it in that kind of scenario," Carlisle told a conference on US defense programs.
The Pentagon has begun working on military options if sanctions and diplomacy fail to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the National Journal in an interview on Thursday that planning had been going on "for a long time."
Panetta, who has said diplomacy and sanctions should be given more time, told the National Journal he did not think Israel had decided whether to order a high-risk raid on Iran's nuclear sites. He said the United States was committed to preventing Iran from acquiring atomic weapons and would have a greater impact than Israel if it decided force was necessary.
"If they decided to do it there's no question that it would have an impact, but I think it's also clear that if the United States did it we would have a hell of a bigger impact," Panetta said.
Carlisle also told the Credit Suisse-McAleese defense conference that a conflict with Syria or Iran could see US military operations influenced by new tactical thinking at the Pentagon known as Air-Sea Battle. That approach aims to take advantage of highly networked and integrated US forces.
Carlisle said the tactics focus on operating in multiple domains, from air and sea to space and cyberspace, while networking and integrating information from the different areas, like satellites and sensors on stealth fighters and unmanned aircraft.
"There's a space capability, there's a cyber capability, there's fifth-generation, low-signature force capability," he said.
"All those things are on the table and being thought about as we do this operational planning," Carlisle added, noting that Syria and Iran have developed significant defenses aimed at keeping potential attackers at a distance, a strategy Air-Sea Battle was designed to circumvent.
Carlisle said cyberspace could be a factor in a conflict with the two countries.
"All of the leadership has said nothing is off the table with respect to what we would employ and use," he said.
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#1
How many of those were needed to make that crater? How deep would it be if you doubled the number of bombs used on the same spot?
#2
Another piece of ammunition destined to sit in storage and rot.
Champ will use it against Iran exactly in the same way he uses it against the NORKS
meaning zilch !
He is a (dumb bordering on childish)negotiator !
The US military (their master's voice) keep fearfully listing all the horrible consequences of a strike on Iran.
in a few months the price of attacking would triple (but that would be the punishment of the next POTUS, or so Bambi hopes- knowing full well that he has very little chance of getting reelected - assuming American voters can analyse the mess he's left behind).
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 7:22
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#3
Credit Suisse-McAleese defense conference
...What, now they're offering low-cost loans to DOD?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/11/2012 7:51
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Mike,
Credit Swiss is in to assess their future profits from Rehab operations after we're through with the Iranians.
They also need to plan the financing of selling new nuke reactors and spare parts to the Ayatollahs after the present ones are destroyed.
and finally they are there to assess the ability of their fortified vault rooms to withstand the bunker busters :)
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 7:58
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#5
You know with all the major computing power in the world, the technology at hand, and a little nudge, a lot of problems can be wrapped up in the region.
[Dawn] Brig Ali Khan, being tried in military court over treason charges and alleged links to attacks on Pakistain Army facilities, has been shifted from Sialkot to Rawalpindi due to serious illness, sources told DawnNews on Saturday.
According to the sources, Brig Khan was shifted to a civilian ward at Rawalpindi's FAIC under the name of 'Feroz Khan'. Court marshal proceedings against the former Army officer have also been postponed for an indefinite period, they said.
Brig Khan and four other officers were jugged in May, 2011 for suspected links to Hizbut Tahrir ...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate... . He was working at the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi at the time of his arrest.
Court marshal proceedings against Brig Ali Khan were stopped temporarily and a doctor was called in on Wednesday after his health deteriorated during the trial.
Colonel (R) Inamur Raheem, Khan's counsel, had expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... s over his client's health, alleging that the army had not followed the orders of the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court which had directed the army to provide Khan a physician of his choice.
Mehr Khan, father of Khan, had written a letter last month to the government, requesting it to hold an inquiry into his son's arrest and direct the concerned authorities to release him.
The letter written on Feb. 11 to Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi had expressed concerns for Khan's life.
The letter further had indicated that he suffered a heart attack and alleged that he was not given proper medical treatment.
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KABUL: Five Taleban detainees held at the US Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent peace process, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said on Saturday.
Do we have to transfer them alive? Are we allowed put put the implants into their heads? Such important questions...
Can we use the 14-inch implants? Or are we stuck with the microchips?
Perhaps the microchip implants attached to the 14-inch spikes?
The transfer idea is part of US efforts to bring the Taleban to the negotiating table to avoid prolonged instability in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.
"We are hopeful this will be a positive step toward peace efforts," Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said, adding the Taleban detainees would be re-united with their families in Qatar if the transfer takes place.
It would be one of a series of good-faith measures that could set in motion the first substantial political negotiations on the conflict in Afghanistan since the Taleban government was toppled in 2001 in a US-led invasion.
Ah yes, 'good-faith' measures. The Taliban of course will reply with good-faith measures of their own, such as .. as .. hmmm...
Despite months of covert diplomacy, it remains unclear whether the prisoner transfer will go ahead. Doubts are growing about whether the Taleban leadership is willing to weather possible opposition from junior and more hard-core members who appear to oppose negotiations.
Yes, the senior guys like Blinky are the souls of moderation. If it were up to them this whole thing would have been over years ago...
Karzai's top aide, Ibrahim Spinzada, visited the Guantanamo facility this week to secure approval from the five Taleban prisoners to be moved to Qatar. Karzai's government has demanded the five former senior members of the Taleban government, held at Guantanamo Bay for a decade, give their consent before they are transferred to the small Gulf state where they would be under Qatar's custody.
Wonder what Qatar says...
US officials hope the peace initiative will gain enough traction to enable Obama to announce the establishment of full-fledged political talks between the Karzai government and the Taleban at a NATO summit in May.
That would mark a major victory for the White House and might ease some of the anxiety created by NATO nations' plans to gradually pull out most of their troops by the end of 2014, leaving an inexperienced Afghan military and fragile government to face a still-formidable insurgency.
The Taleban detainees are seen by some US officials as among the most dangerous inmates at Guantanamo. Their possible transfer has drawn attack from US politicians from both parties even before the administration formally begins a required congressional notification process.
Among the prisoners who may be sent to Qatar is Mohammed Fazl, a "high-risk" detainee alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of minority Shiite Muslims between 1998 and 2001.
Release him in the Tajik or Uzbek regions of Aghanistan, and let him walk to Kandahar. Make sure Dostum knows beforehand...
Afghan foreign minister will visit Qatar in the "near future" for peace discussions with the Taleban, his spokesman said yesterday. The minister will hold talks on the relationship between the nations and also "discuss the Afghan peace process," including "the idea of establishing an office... in Qatar to facilitate the peace process," Mosazi said.
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Hundreds of Mohammedan women gathered near Tunis Saturday to call for the return of the caliphate, the defunct Islamic system of governance which they said was the only means of guaranteeing their rights.
The members of the Hizb ut-Tahrir party came from Islamic countries including Arab states, Indonesia and Turkey, as well as from Europe to debate the benefits of the system that disappeared nearly 90 years ago.
"This conference raises questions about the secular liberal way of life and asks whether it is a system that has succeed in securing the dignity and rights of women," chief spokeswoman Nasrin Nawaaz of the British branch of the party told AFP.
"Mohammedan women are gathering together saying that we no longer want to live under secular liberal democratic systems," she added.
"We want a new system, we want the khalifa system that historically has been tried and has succeeded in securing the rights of women."
Nawaz said that countries such as Soddy Arabia and Iran that promote themselves as Islamic states "in reality they implement nothing but the rules of dictatorship."
Men were banned from the conference, which opened with a film castigating Western political systems and calling for "patient and determined work to re-establish the law of Islam."
Founded in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahir has members and sympathisers in more than 50 countries. It seeks the return of the caliphate, based on Islamic charia law, by political means.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
Hundreds of animated bags ....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2012 8:43
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#2
Hey ladies, Turkey is still around, if you want to be ruled by Turks.
[An Nahar] Five people were maimed on Saturday when festivities broke out on Saturday between security forces and students from the Phalange Party The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology. and National Liberal Party, reported Voice of Leb radio.
The students were protesting the new official history book that is being prepared to be taught at schools throughout Leb.
Phalange Party MP Sami Gemayel condemned to MTV "the brutality against a peaceful student demonstration."
The demonstration began from the Phalange Party headquarters in downtown Beirut and made its way to the Grand Serail, also in downtown.
As they reached Bank Street, security forces prevented them from reaching their final destination.
A scuffle ensued and five people, including security forces, were maimed in the incident, said VDL.
It explained that the festivities broke out when the security forces thwarted the demonstrators from driving a car towards the Grand Serail.
It later reported that the demonstrators returned to the Phalange headquarters to meet with party leaderships to take a position from the day's developments.
Phalange politburo member Albert Kostanian later told LBC television that the demonstrators were protesting peacefully, accusing the security forces of assaulting the students for no reason.
"It is well-known that the Phalange Party is very disciplined, but the state rejects freedom of expression," he added.
Gemayel said: "This is only the beginning and a lot more protests will take place in the future over this issue."
"We hoped that the students would have been left alone to demonstrate peacefully," he added.
"We hold the executive authority responsible for the assault," continued the MP.
Gemayel had criticized recently the new history book, deeming its selective and subjective in recounting historic events.
Prime Minister Najib Miqati followed up on Saturday the incident.
Miqati telephoned Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and inquired about the festivities, he also contacted MP Gemayel expressing regret over what happened.
The premier and Gemayel agreed on sending a delegation from the Phalange Party The Kataeb (Phalange) party was founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936, who modeled the party after Spanish and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement's uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Nazi salute. Despite the party's uniform, its strong sense of nationalism and dedication to a single charismatic leader, the Lebanese Kataeb was not and never became a fascist party nor did it espouse a totalitarian ideology. to state their demands regarding the new History book.
For its part, Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... students department issued a statement condemning the incident.
The statement stressed that "the new History book will not be approved as FPM leader MP Michel Aoun ...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... promised."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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I'd be careful about the use of the word 'targeting' around the Pak military, especially the generals connected with the ISI. They know a thing or two about targeting that the average lawyer doesn't...
ISLAMABAD: Pakistans powerful military establishment is under rare scrutiny from the countrys top court, which after a gap of 16 years has opened an investigation into allegations the army funneled money to politicians to influence elections.
The case has showcased the emerging power of the Supreme Court, which is also hearing a contempt case against the prime minister that could see him imprisoned. The courts activism has led to some uncomfortable headlines for politicians and pierced the perception of the generals invulnerability.
But its unclear who, if anyone, will be held accountable.
I'll go out on a limb and say 'no one'. My second guess is they'll make some dead guy accountable; if they don't have a conveniently dead guy they'll make one...
Indeed, some critics say by moving against the generals now, the court is just seeking to deflect criticism that it focuses solely on the alleged misdeeds of the elected civilian government and wants to dislodge President Ali Zardari, with the supposed nod from the military itself.
Iftikhar Chaudry would like to get rid of both Zardari and the ISI, so this works for him.
The court is also demanding answers from the army and spy agencies over the fate of hundreds of missing Pakistanis: suspected militants or separatists picked up and held by military authorities for months and years in secret detentions.
They can't tell you; it's a secret.
Analysts say the developments are part of jostling between the army, the court and the government, with each wanting to stake a claim on its sphere of influence. There seems to be a balance among them so far, with no side willing or strong enough to strike a decisive blow against another. Speculation of a military coup or the imminent ousting of the government, frequently raised in the media just a few months ago, has receded.
The court is acting on a petition filed in 1996 by former Air Vice Marshal Asghar Khan, demanding it investigate what he claimed were payments to right-wing politicians made by the army-run Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, known as the ISI. The money was to be used to ensure that the Pakistan Peoples Party currently in power would not win the 1990 general elections.
Without explaining why,
...other than it was time to make their move to grab power...
the court began hearing the case last month. Testimony this week has shone a light on longtime allegations that the ISI has tried to influence elections.
On Thursday, Yunus Habib, a 90-year-old banker from the state-owned Mehran Bank, testified that he doled out the equivalent of $1.5 million in bank funds to politicians and ISI officers on the orders of then army chief Gen. Aslam Beg and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who was considered close to the army. Some of the politicians who allegedly took the funds remain powerful political players, including opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He has denied taking any money.
"Lies! All lies!"
On Friday, former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani testified that he was directed by Beg to distribute the money among politicians from the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a right-wing political alliance allegedly set up by the military establishment to counter the PPP. He said Beg told him the money had been collected from the business community in Karachi.
The alleged bribes didnt give the alliance victory, however. It won 53 seats in the National Assembly, 49 less than the PPP that went on to form the government.
Khans lawyer Salman Raja said he wanted criminal cases brought against all those who distributed and received the money. That would roil the political scene and likely be opposed by the army. Moreover, the nature of the evidence against them is unclear.
Retired justice Tariq Mahmood said the case was a morale booster for the current government, but that it was unlikely anyone would be put on trial. The government now has a chance to bring the intelligence agencies ... under its control, he said.
Political analyst Moeed Pirzada said the case put both the military and Nawaz Sharif on the defensive, which benefits the current PPP government, but would likely remain inconclusive. He said the court saw the case as an opportunity to assert itself following criticism by some over its pursuit of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Supreme Court justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudry has been accused of pursuing a vendetta against Zardaris PPP government. Zardari opposed Chaudrys reinstatement to the job in March 2009. The court has ordered Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani to reopen a corruption probe against Zardari.
Gilani has refused, arguing that Zardari has immunity from prosecution so long as he remains president. If found guilty of contempt for ignoring the order, Gilani could be imprisoned for six months and lose his job.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/11/2012
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[An Nahar] A grenade attack on a Nairobi bus station on Saturday killed at least four people and maimed nearly 60 others, in an assault Kenyan police blamed on the Islamist Shebab militia.
A hospital front man said at least eight people were in a critical condition following the attack, during which witnesses reported seeing grenades thrown from a car.
"This is a cowardly act by al-Shebab elements," police front man Charles Owino told news hounds at the site of the attack, the busy Machakos country bus station, near the city center.
"But we will not relent in the war. We will get them and we will continue with the war."
Initial reports spoke of three people being killed and more than 20 injured. But a front man at Kenyatta National Hospital, the city's main hospital, said a fourth person had since died of his wounds.
"We have 59 people who are admitted here, eight of them are in a critical condition," front man Simon Ithai said. "Unfortunately we have lost one person here."
Earlier, a senior police official who did not want to be named told Agence La Belle France Presse it was believed several grenades had been thrown at the bus station.
Witness Charles Njenga told AFP: "I just saw a vehicle pass and then someone just threw things that went kaboom!. Many people have been injured.
"I survived because I was in a bus that was still loading people," he added.
Other witnesses spoke of three or four grenades having been thrown in and around the bus station from out of a car.
Traces of blood were still visible on the floor of the bus station, where around 10 buses were still parked, and ambulances were still ferrying the maimed to hospital. Other, less seriously injured people were being treated on the spot.
About 500 meters from the bus station, the body of one of the victims, a young man, could be seen was stretched out in front of a petrol station
"I came to get petrol when I saw a man who was running and he collapsed, dead," said motorcyclist Reuben Otela. "When I got closer, I saw that he was covered in blood, he had decamped the kaboom."
It is the first such incident in the Kenyan capital since two grenade attacks carried out within 24 hours of each other last October killed one person and injured 30 others. The first of those attacks targeted a bar in the capital; the second was an attack on a particularly bus stop.
A Kenyan supporter of Somalia's Islamist Shebab fighters was placed in durance vile soon afterwards and was convicted after having confessed to the attacks.
No one has so far grabbed credit for Saturday's killings.
But the Shebab have on several occasions threatened reprisal attacks against Kenya since it sent its troops over the border into southern Somalia in mid-October to fight the group.
Kenya sent its soldiers, backed by planes and helicopters, into Somalia following the abduction of several foreigners on Kenyan soil -- although the Shebab have denied any involvement in the kidnappings. A month later, in November, Ethiopian troops and tanks entered Somalia to support the Somali transitional government against the Shebab.
Earlier Saturday Shebab fighters launched a major attack lasting several hours against positions held by Ethiopian forces in southwest Somalia. The battle left many fighters dead, witnesses and military sources on both sides told AFP.
As well as the Ethiopians and the Kenyans, the Shebab fighters are under pressure from an African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... force of Ugandan and Burundian troops, which has forced them out of the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The Kenyan army has since last month been part of the African Union force.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes continued to strike several targets across the Gazoo Strip overnight and early Saturday morning for the second day bringing the corpse count to 12, and injuries to 20.
Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... 's military wing the Al-Quds Brigades said in a statement that 10 of their fighters were killed since Friday. It said the group launched 41 Grad missiles, 20 homemade projectiles, six mortar shells, and three 107-mm rockets at Israeli targets.
So then the rest of the 100 thingies launched at Israel must have been put up in the air by the PRC. See? Math isn't so hard.
A Ma'an news hound identified the 12 dead as Muhammad al-Ghamry, Fayiq Saad, Muatasim Hajjaj, Ubeid Gharabli, Muhammad Hararah, Hazim Qureiqi, Shadi Sayqali, Zuheir al-Qaysi, Mahmoud Hanani, Muhammad Maghari, Mahmoud Najim, and Ahmad Hajjaj.
Medical sources, meanwhile, said 26-year-old Muhammad al-Ghamry succumbed to wounds he sustained Saturday morning as Israeli warplanes targeted a car on Salah Ad-Din Street off the coast in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gazoo Strip.
They said Islamic Jihad operatives Ahmad Hajjaj, Fayiq Saad, and Muatasim Hajjaj were targeted by fighter jets early Saturday as they were walking near the building of the Paleostinian Legislative Council in the Shujaiyyah neighborhood in Gazoo City. Fayiq Saad and Muatasim Hajjaj were killed immediately, while Ahmad Hajjaj sustained mortal wounds and was pronounced dead shortly after he was evacuated.
In Beit Lahiya in the northern Gazoo Strip, an Israeli Arclight airstrike killed Muhammad Maghari and Mahmoud Najim on Hutayba street early Saturday.
Another Israeli raid injured four Paleostinians from the same family as a rocket hit a basement on Yarmouk Street in Gazoo City, according to medical sources.
Warplanes also targeted a military base used by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' military wing the al-Qassam Brigades in western Gazoo City. The base was hit twice. No injuries have been reported, however, the attack resulted in power cuts in several neighborhoods.
Another Arclight airstrike hit a security base west of Rafah in the southern Gazoo Strip.
Israel's military says over 45 rockets have struck sites in the south, injuring four people, one severely, one moderately and two lightly.
It's "Iron Dome" missile defense system has intercepted over 10 Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... which the army says which were fired at the cities of Beer Sheva, Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Israel said its aircraft targeted two weapon manufacturing facilities and two rocket launching sites in northern Gazoo, a weapon manufacturing facility in central Gazoo and a "terror activity site" in southern Gazoo.
Aircraft targeted a fighter in central Gazoo and six additional squads who were in the final stages of preparing to fire rockets at Israel from separate locations in northern and central Gazoo, the army said.
#1
Israel used to have a clear policy of killing 10 Paleos for every Israeli the Paleos killed. They need to expand on this policy about the use of rockets. For every rocket the Paleos send, Israel should respond with 10 rockets.
I personally would prefer that they give training to 105mm Howitzer gunners at a rate of 10 to 1.
They could even give the Paleos a freebie every now and then, firing a smoke barrage instead of HE, just to keep them on their toes.
#5
Anonymoose,
Why not 155mm howitzers ? ( we dont have 105 mm any more).
I used to serve in a 175mm mobile guns unit, these shells were real whoppers. Unfortunately the IDF does not have them any more.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 14:21
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#6
Some of the comments at the article are... disturbing.
But not unexpected considering the article itself.
I just sort of have a soft spot for 105mm Howitzers, and it sort of seems right for plinking into Gaza. For example, get a few, used, and issue them and a hundred rounds out to Sderot, and anyone else pestered by Gazan rockets.
Officially, they could say that they were trying to "shoot down" the incoming rockets, so it's not their fault that misses cause damage where they land.
The Israel Air Force's Iron Dome counter rocket defense system intercepted 27 rockets fired from the Gaza Strip over the weekend, raising the interception rate from 75 percent last year to over 90%.
Israel currently has three Iron Dome batteries in operation -- in Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheba - and plans to deploy the fourth in the coming months. Its plan is to deploy a total of nine batteries by mid-2013.
The battery in Ashdod intercepted 11 rockets out of 13 fired into the city; the battery in Ashkelon intercepted one rocket and purposely did not intercept four others since they were heading to open fields; and the battery in Beersheba intercepted 15 and allowed two others to land in open fields. The radar enables Iron Dome operators to predict the landing site of the enemy rocket and decide not to intercept it if it is slated to fall in an open field. Each interceptor costs around $50,000 and usually two are fired at rockets slated for interception.
#2
still way too expensive. While C-RAM is apparently insufficient for the task, the laser version might do the trick, saving Iron Dome for the big stuff.
The Germans hold the copyright, and would likely be willing to sell it to the Israelis.
#3
The next thing this should do is calculate the launch point and initiate immediate counter-battery fire. Do it so quickly that the rounds hit before the launch team can shoot and scoot.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/11/2012 13:56
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#4
The problem is that shooting down a $100 missile with two $50,000 missiles can eventually lead to bankrupting the defender.
#6
I would rather like to see a "counter battery" system where as soon as the missile launch is detected, a return missile is launched in the general direction of the launch location.
The inbound missile's trajectory is calculated back to its origination point and this location is loaded in the return missile while it is in flight. You should be able to put return fire on the originating locations within seconds of firing a missile at Israel.
If the return missile never gets a good target load, it self-destructs.
The point is to make the shooter pay a consequence for their action. With Iron Dome as it is today, the shooter wins with every round they fire. They do $100,000 worth of "damage" to the economy of Israel for every $100 they spend with no direct consequence to themselves.
27 rockets intercepted over the weekend means the Gazoos spent $2.7 thousand and Israel $2.7 million. A few more "successes" like that for Israel and the country goes broke.
#7
X-patch's calculations leave out two important things:
1) the cost of damage that paleo-rockets would do if they were NOT intercepted. I would also factor in the cost of induced terror from a successful missile strike.
2) the Paleos have recently upgunned and are launching heavier, more effective ordinance than their previous pitiful but still annoying bottle rockets.
Terror has always been a cheap way to wage unconventional war, but it is not without it's own unique costs as a glance at the Gaza-related topics here at the Burg shows. CIA World Factbook puts the Israeli economy at 235 billion. I suspect the Paleos will run out of Gaza before the Israelis run out of money.
#8
As these rockets are unguided, any damage they might do is pretty much random. They can only fire a missile in the general direction of a town, they can't target a specific building. MOST of them do very little if any actual damage and what is done is MOSTLY superficial cosmetic damage costing much less than $50,000 to repair.
It is a political / psychological thing. It makes the political leadership appear to be "doing something" about it. But what they are doing about it really means that the missiles will keep up forever.
What I would rather see is Israel announce that for every missing that flies from Gazoo, 100 of the same type ... cheap unguided rockets hitting pretty much at random ... will fly back.
27 rockets at Israel, 2700 rockets back.
Announce the policy in advance, don't do it in secret. Once they have to pay in spades for what they dish out, it will probably stop after only a few such return volleys. Return fire should happen in seconds of the launch of a rocket from Gazoo. People should get a clear realization that a rocket going out is going to result in a hundred coming in.
Right now the terrorists in Gaza and the population that supports them pay no consequence for their actions. Israel takes out some high level commander so some organization pays some kind of price, but the people of Gaza don't pay the sort of price the people if Israel do.
The 'vitality' and 'dynamism' of the middle class in Pakistan are channelled into ideological aspirations that negate the modern state
The economist says the middle class anywhere in the world is a factor of dynamic growth: a growing middle class means the country will post good growth rates. But for the non-economist, no two middle classes may be alike. In Pakistain, the middle class is conservative, just like India's; but unlike India, it is ideological, anti-American and pro-Taliban.
The Indian Constitution informs the attitude of the Indian middle class, which is tolerant of secularism. In Pakistain, the Constitution inclines the middle class to desire sharia and consequently prefer the 'harder' sharia of al Qaeda to state ideology. It is the sentinel of the unchanging character of the medieval state presented as a utopia by state ideology.
Many factors are common between India and Pakistain. The middle class lives in the city and votes rightwing. The BJP gets its vote in the city; the Congress Party gets it from the rural areas. The PMLN gets its vote from the cities of Punjab; the PPP gets it from the rural areas of Punjab and Sindh. In Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , the middle class is conservative but its 'secularism' is strongly tinged with ethnicity, which means it is being unnaturally blocked from its internal dynamic by the leadership in exile of Altaf Hussain.
Today, Musharraf is the most hated man by the class that he created with his consumerist economics
The middle class of Punjab hates the middle class of Bloody Karachi and Hyderabad. Can we call the latter an 'unnatural' middle class? If Altaf Hussain had not dictated its conduct, wouldn't it have persecuted the Ahmadis and other minorities or acquiesced in their persecution just like the middle class of Punjab as influenced by Pakistain's Constitution? Or wouldn't its lawyers - the vanguard of the middle class in the country - have celebrated the killers prowling the land under Blasphemy Law the same way as the lawyers of Punjab?
Economist Ijaz Nabi writes: 'Sensible economists argue that what really matters for economic and political stability is the size of a country's middle class. Societies with a large middle class find non-violent means of resolving conflict. This hastens recovery from political and economic crises and deepens confidence. Such countries are durable destinations for investment and prosperity...Political instability threatens this system of governance and therefore is anathema to the middle class'.
The plaint about Pakistain is that it is a nation-state without a nation. It actually points to the ideology that advocates the concept of umma, importing the instability of other states into itself, and making it vulnerable to the idea of an imagined utopia, thus creating a middle class dissatisfied with an imperfect existential state
Political scientists too agree. They think that the state was created out of a need for security - mainly of property rights - and law and order. But if the state inculcates concepts that militate against the nation-state itself, its middle class is bound to be moulded by it. The plaint about Pakistain is that it is a nation-state without a nation. It actually points to the ideology that advocates the concept of umma, importing the instability of other states into itself, and making it vulnerable to the idea of an imagined utopia, thus creating a middle class dissatisfied with an imperfect existential state. The result is a middle class unhappy with status quo, which is a contradiction in terms of its conservative definition.
Here comes the cruel bite of additional irony. The middle class bulge in Pakistain was created under the decade of General Musharraf, an apparently non-ideological ruler finally rejected by the Army for calling off jihad. Today he is the most hated man by the class that he created with his consumerist economics.
Economist Nadeemul Haq of the Planning Commission gives us the tiding that, in proportion to the total population, Pakistain's middle class is twice as big as India's. He defines the middle class thus: 'Pakistain is now more urbanised with a larger middle class than India as percentage of the population. In 2007, Standard Chartered Bank analysts and State Bank governor Dr Ishrat Husain estimated there were 30 to 35 million Paks earning an average of $10,000 a year. Of these, about 17 million are in the upper and upper middle class, according to a recent report'.
[box3]The political scientist will add that the middle class is the pillar of a state's nationalism. State education targets it and resultant indoctrination embeds the designated enemy in the minds of the middle class population more than the other two polarised segments, the rich and the poor. The most prominent symbol of nationalism - which invariably aspires to war through the designation of an external enemy - is the Army.
Consequently, the middle classes of Pakistain and India focus on military preparedness as their favoured feature of the nation-state. In Pakistain it was the PMLN that completed the cycle in the production of the Army's ultimate symbol - the atom bomb - while the PPP was always suspected of 'capping' the nuclear programme. In India, it was the BJP whose more declaratory policy on the bomb pushed the country into becoming a nuclear power.
Some people have studied the nexus between the Army and the middle class but may have neglected all the causes behind why the middle class celebrates every time there is an Army takeover following a chaotic civilian interregnum ruling on the basis of middle class values.
The explanation may lie in the composition of the officers' corps in the Army, which is overwhelmingly middle class. First of all let's be clear about the distribution of population in South Asia. Over 60 percent of the population here lives in the countryside unlike most Arab states where the ratio is reversed. In Pakistain, the province of Punjab contains the largest number of cities, urban centres, where the middle class lives. Since Punjab's population is 60 percent of the country's population, the Army is composed of Punjabis up to 80 percent. Even the Navy, which should normally absorb coastal populations, is composed almost exclusively of Punjabis.
A Punjabi middle class Army must be informed with middle class values. A website under the heading of Pakistain Defence (http://www.defence.pk/) has the following observation to make about how the Army is now informed by Punjab's middle class values: 'The Islamisation of the Army plays into the hands of the Taliban. Islam is meant to be the unifying force, primarily to fight the kafirs of Hindu India. The process of Islamisation was boosted by Gen Ziaul Haq when he upgraded the status of the unit mullah and required him to go into battle'.
The 'vitality' and 'dynamism' of the middle class in Pakistain are channelled into ideological aspirations that negate the modern state. Moulded by religion, the nationalism inculcated by the state is upheld in full measure only by the middle class. The middle class and the Army are mutually empowering each other. The middle class officers in the army constantly remind the Army of neglected ideology by trying to stage coups, from Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, the creator of Hizbullah, to Brigadier Ali, the agent of Hizbut Tahrir ...an al-Qaeda recruiting organization banned in most countries. It calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate... Today the attitude of the state of Pakistain is dictated by what the middle class thinks under democracy and dominance of the media. TV channels are all Urdu after an effort to start up English-language channels failed because the middle class rejected the values they were suspected of purveying. Urdu conveys the middle class worldview. The Urdu press carries the middle class message which simply cannot be translated onto the pages of English-language press. Urdu is the language of Pak nationalism, not English.
The Mighty Pak Army forgets strategy and thinks of honour because it is middle class in composition. It is honour which isolates, as first explained by Plato when he looked at the 'hubris' of the hero in Greek tragedy. Today Pakistain's favourite foreign policy edict is honour. South Asian middle class abroad is created after financial improvement of the migrant families. The Indian expat is rightwing, religious and pro-BJP. The Pak expat too is conservative-religious and pro-PMLN and pro-Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... . The difference is lack of assimilation in the case of the Pak expat.
Lack of assimilation of the expat Pak middle class is its preoccupation with the umma and the resultant agitation it brings from extra-nationalist causes. The other responsible factor is the inability to teach acceptance of host cultures: Mohammedans don't suit themselves to circumstance; they must suit the world to the diktat of their faith, making Islam the religion of dominance.
Continued on Page 49
American politics and the upcoming presidential election have been roiled the last several weeks about the economy.
No, no, not the economy after all, but whether we'll bomb Iran to prevent them from having the Bomb.
No, no, not the Bomb after all, but whether our society should provide free contraception to all who desire it.
What? That question being short for, "what the hell?"
You will pardon me, I hope, for being a little late to the party. Giants such as Mark Steyn and James Lileks have gone before me, and I doubt that I shall add any humor to the equation. I also shall not use naughty words to describe women who wish that all should have free contraception on demand, as I still live in fear of my eighty-one year old father who would shame me, then deck me and wash my mouth out with soap for uttering such words.
But I do want to pass on an observation that has not been discussed prominently elsewhere.
Some have said that one reason we are discussing contraception is because the Democratic party leaders are so worried about election 2012 that they must refocus the average American voter onto a wedge social issue instead of the bread and butter issues of the economy. If you haven't yet noticed, President Obama inherited a troubled, struggling economy mired in a recession, and has managed to make it worse. It wasn't easy, but he's done a bang-up job of it. His stimulus bill was to cut unemployment but unemployment is up and the working force is down. The spending, the corruption behind the spending, and the lack of results from all the spending combine to make this election one of hand-waving for the Donks. They'll talk about almost anything else -- oh look, over here, shiny! -- because they understand that the truest path for the Republicans this November is to keep in mind the hoary rule once uttered by James Carville: it's the economy, stupid.
That is a partially true but not completely explanation, because the contraception issue is one that seems to have been put forward with a great deal of care, starting with a debate question from George 'Sparky' Stephanopoulos several months back. All this for a lousy election?
So yes, the contraception issue, of course, isn't about contraception at all.
It's not about preventing conception. But it is also about something more basic than just one election.
It is about power and the march to power. It is about the need to remove or at least compromise those who prevent success in the coming revolution.
In any left revolution, be it progressive, bolshevik, socialist, fascist, national socialist, maoist, or bolivarian, it is necessary as part of the march to power to knock down organized religion. The Catholic Church competes for the hearts and minds of people and does so effectively, as do the evangelical (not the squishy mainline) Protestant churches and the synagogues and temples of other religions. But more than many, the Catholic Church is organized and can use its hierarchy to generate an effective message of opposition. It stands in the way.
So at some point the revolution has to take on the Church or lose. Socialists today understand the power the Church had in Poland in the 1970s, in Nicaragua and El Salvador in the 1980s, and in Venezuela today. The current revolution will not make the mistake of allowing the Church to survive long-term.
If the revolution is strong enough to take out the Church directly, it does so. But if not, it has to take on the Church in ways that compromise the Church's moral authority and organization. It's rather Alinsky-like, eh?
Hence contraception today. This is no mistake on the part of the revolutionary left employed within the Obama administration. They understand that contraception is a popular issue, far more so than abortion, and that most people either favor widespread availability or are libertarian enough to say that it isn't their personal business what others do. Many Catholics use contraceptives despite Church teaching. Combine it with the health-care issue and it's a two-fer, since it now shows the 'popularity' of ObamaCare.
So the contraception issue is the wedge used to loosen the grip of the Church. By forcing the Church to back down it shows the Church to be impotent and unable to defend its moral authority. That pays off when the revolution takes its next step to knock the Church back further: as one example, the use of ObamaCare to force Catholic hospitals into performing abortions. Think that isn't coming? Think again: give them time, and they will find a way to bully the Catholic charities into toeing their line.
If the Church pushes back? How can it? Yes, it can publish and talk, but the compliant mainstream news media will dilute that voice, if not silence it altogether, and push back with opinion pieces and editorials. That is already being done. The Church can preach from the pulpit, but that's a limited voice in these days of low Sunday attendance. It can work levers of power, but government officials, even at the local level, are not as amenable and accessible as they used to be to Church power.
The Church could take action. But the laws are murky, court actions take forever, and there are legal risks to the Church. What if a federal court says that yes, the government does indeed have the right to order the Church to provide contraceptive coverage to its employees? Then the Church is really in the public relations and legal soup.
What action is left? Civil disobedience, of course, but that pits one master against another, the progressive, Alinsky left. Imagine the Church saying (for example) fine, force us to violate our principles and in response we'll shut down our secular operations. How long would it take Obama, Holder, and Sebelius to push back -- for example, to obtain a court order to seize a closed Catholic hospital? All in the name of the public, of course, for the 'good of the people'. This will, they think, rally the people to them instead of to the Church. That's the power that is needed to go forward. That is the power that will cow the critics other than Rush Limbaugh, and they have other plans for him.
That this is being done in an election year is important to rally the hard Left base to Obama, of course. But it is more importantly being done as part of a longer-term strategy to harass and eventually neuter the Church and send a clear message to other foes. It is a sign that Obama and the progressives in his administration are increasingly confident that they will win, have a second term to finish their transformation -- their left, progressive revolution -- of America, and so they want to make progress where they can and when it can be done.
This is no mistake, no misguided policy, and no one went off the reservation. It is deliberate, careful, and far-reaching.
It is about power.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/11/2012
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#1
And I AM not comfortable at all with it.
Thanks White.
[Dawn] Many people who resisted militancy in their native areas mainly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... over the years and then moved to other cities, particularly Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , for security reasons are still the target of banned jihad boy outfits, it emerged on Saturday.
While police authorities and some senior Sherlocks partially agree that some people had been killed in the city for their or their families' proactive role against militancy back in their hometowns, most such cases have to date remained unsolved, fuelling speculation over the exact motive.
"In a year or so, at least seven people who hailed from rural parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or tribal areas were killed in Bloody Karachi," said a senior investigator.
"The incidents were mostly reported in the east and west districts of the police organizational structure where many communities from other parts of the country are mostly settled."To back up his claim about the trend, he recalled a recent
killing in a Landhi Town area.
"The victim was allegedly targeted for his family's proactive role against militancy in Malakand over the past few years."
Another murder said to have been committed due to this reason was reported in Baldia Town last month, he said.
The victim hailing from Khyber Agency had been settled here in Bloody Karachi for the past several years but his family in his hometown had played a key role in the formation of a community group to fight militancy, the investigator explained.
Police said the victims also included Awami National Party workers who had supported the migrant families and arranged accommodation for them in Bloody Karachi.
The ruling party in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which claims to have suffered more losses than any other political group in the province for its 'outspoken stand against the banned outfits', agrees, only partially, to police findings. It raises a few questions challenging the authenticity of the investigation.
"It can be a reason for a few killings in Bloody Karachi," said Bashir Jan, ANP general secretary in Sindh, while speaking to Dawn.
"We are the only party which is being targeted for its stand against terrorism and brutality mainly in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Our people stand against that injustice and pay the price as well."
He said some individuals here in the city were targeted only for their or their families' anti-militancy struggle.
"But there is another point to ponder. When the police fail to undertake a credible investigation of the murder, it is an easy way out for them to blame jihad boy outfits for the killing," said Mr Jan.
He cited the example of Said Khan who was rubbed out by a group of gunnies in the Metroville area of SITE last month. One of the attackers was also killed when a guard opened fire on them, he said. "We were then told that the attackers were associated
with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain."
But the claim by Sherlocks was not followed by any arrest or corroborated by evidence, he added.
The police authorities said 'links and traces' lead to the motive and people behind a crime. Since Bloody Karachi had witnessed a number of terrorist activities from suicide kabooms to sectarian attacks, the role of banned outfits in assassinations could not be
ruled out, they said.
"Those incidents did happen," said Akhtar Hussain Ghorchani, additional inspector general of police.
"The ANP people and other individuals obviously faced the reaction. So you can't rule it out, but one should understand that it's not a trend but a few incidents over the period."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Nigeria on Saturday quizzed the alleged kidnappers of two Westerners killed during a failed British-Nigerian rescue bid amid a diplomatic row between London and Rome over the operation.
A Nigerian security source said one had confessed to killing Italian engineer La Belle Francesco Molinara, 48, and his British colleague Chris McManus, 28, during the assault authorised by British Prime Minister David Cameron ... has stated that he is certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite, which means he's not. Since he is not deeply ideological he lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger, but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ... on Thursday.
The radical Islamist Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... sect, blamed for scores of gun and kabooms mainly in the country's northeast in recent months, has denied responsibility Nope. Wudn't us. for the kidnappings.
Nigerian security sources told AFP eight suspects had been flown to the capital Abuja following the joint military operation in the northern town of Sokoto to free the hostages after almost a year in captivity.
"Those that were tossed in the slammer in connection with the incident were brought to the SSS (secret police) headquarters, Abuja, yesterday(Friday)," a security source said.
"In the course of interrogation one of them said they killed the two guys on sighting the coppers because they were not sure they, too, will survive the attack," he said.
Another security source said: "They are being interrogated to have a complete picture of the whole episode."
"A lot of substantial information is beginning to emerge from the suspects."
Italia has condemned Britannia's failure to warn it ahead of the failed rescue operation, but London said it had been forced by the situation to act swiftly.
"The behaviour of the British government, which did not inform or consult with Italia on the operation that it was planning, really is inexplicable," President Giorgio Napolitano told news hounds on Friday.
At an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Copenhagen later Friday, Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata said he made Italia's feelings clear during talks with British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Cameron said the two hostages had been held by "terrorists" who had made "very clear threats to take their lives", and the captives had been in "imminent and growing danger".
Both countries have however agreed to cooperate on the issue.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan ... 14th President of Nigeria. He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP). He is a lover of nifty hats, which makes him easily recognizable unless someone else in the room is wearing a neat chapeau... has sent his condolences to the British and Italian premiers over the incident.
"In two separate letters of condolence to David Cameron and Mario Monti... President Jonathan said that the hearts of the people and government of Nigeria go out to the members of the immediate families of the victims in their moment of grief," his office said Saturday.
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Maulana selling Islam
Quoted in Jinnah Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who is the lightweight's lightweight... said that while Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... Continued on Page 49
Africa's religious divide is visible from space. Satellite images show the browns and burnt yellows of the arid north giving way to tropical greens as the view moves from north to south.
The coloured frontier slices through Nigeria in the west through Sudan, reaching the Indian Ocean in Kenya. To the north lie Mohammedan lands, to the south the religion is predominantly Christian.
I travelled across that line in 2001, shortly after 9/11, driving from the Nigerian capital Abuja to the historic city of Sokoto, scene of Thursday's failed attempt Curses! Foiled again! to rescue Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara.
Then, I was welcomed with astounding hospitality. It may have been Ramadan and a time of fasting for the locals, but a hungry traveller could find flat bread and hard boiled eggs at any time of day. And there was even beer at dinner time. Time and again I was told that the largely Sufi Mohammedans of northern Nigeria shared my horror at the events in the US two months earlier. The only blip was a photo I spotted of the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now beyond all cares and woe... pasted to a bus, which my hosts explained away as a remnant of a time when no-one imagined the true horror of al-Qaeda.
Things have changed since then. The religious divide has become a faultline.
Religious riots have claimed hundreds of lives in Nigeria in cities such as Jos, where murderous gangs in 2010 sought out Christians they believed enjoyed social and economic advantages.
Samantha Lewthwaite, widow of one of London's 7/7 bomber, is thought to be on the run in Kenya having joined up with members of a Somali-linked terror cell.
And Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. Currently wearing a false nose and moustache and answering to Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, or Big Louie... -- "Western education is harmful" in the local Hausa language -- has developed its links with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, shifting its tactics to include targeting Westerners and launching terrorist attacks.
So what has gone wrong?
In the past year, intelligence officials believe al-Qaeda has been badly damaged in its Pak boltholes. Bin Laden was killed on May 2, and senior commanders have been targeted by an intense barrage of drone strikes. As a result, they have begun a migration to safer climes -- Yemen, Somalia and North Africa, among them.
There they will find many of the factors that made Pakistain a haven for a decade: governments that struggle to impose their will on remote corners of their territory; long, mostly non-existent borders; and a patchwork of local disputes that can be manipulated and fitted into an anti-Western narrative that justifies terror attacks.
At the same time, vast stockpiles of weapons have simply disappeared from Libya since the downfall of Colonel Qadaffy. In addition, Tuareg fighters who once pledged allegiance to the Libyan leader have returned to Mali, reigniting a simmering war.
An influx of al-Qaeda leaders and missing crates of anti-aircraft missiles is a recipe for disaster. The first casualty could be the centuries-old trading sultanate of Sokoto. Reports suggest Boko Haram has its sights on Sultan of Sokoto Sa'ad Abubakar III, angry at how much power is invested in a single individual.
Nigeria is still a long way from the bloody insurgency that has brought so much pain to Pakistain. But it would be a tragedy for its religious differences -- and the peaceful, moderate population in the north -- to be exploited by foreign Islamofascists from outside.
Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five... , Pakistain's cricketer-turned-politician, tells the story of how he once took his father-in-law Jimmy Goldsmith to Wazoo in the remote tribal areas to dine on succulent roast lamb. Such a visit by a Westerner is impossible now. I hope Sokoto does not go the same way.
#1
Pakistan is where Muslims slaughter Christians without consequence. Nigeria is over 50% Christian, and well-known for the Biafran War, during which Christian Igbos gave the British-funded and -supported Muslim-led government a good run for its money in a secessionist war that lasted 2.5 years, despite being outnumbered 5 to 1. (Britain's allies were the Soviet Union, China, Syria and Africa's Muslim countries).
[Dawn] Five Taliban detainees held at the US Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent grinding of the peace processor, President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... 's front man said on Saturday.
The transfer idea is part of US efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table to avoid prolonged instability in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.
"We are hopeful this will be a positive step towards peace efforts," Karzai's front man Aimal Faizi told Rooters, adding the Taliban detainees would be re-united with their families in Qatar if the transfer takes place.
It would be one of a series of good-faith measures that could set in motion the first substantial political negotiations on the conflict in Afghanistan since the Taliban government was toppled in 2001 in a US-led invasion.
A year after it was unveiled, the B.O. regime's peace initiative may soon offer the United States a historic opportunity to broker an end to a war that began as the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.
But the peace drive also presents risks for President Barack Obama Because I won... . He faces the potential for political fallout months before a presidential election, as his government considers backing an arrangement that would give some degree of power to the Taliban.
Despite months of covert diplomacy, it remains unclear whether the prisoner transfer will go ahead.
Doubts are growing about whether the Taliban leadership is willing to weather possible opposition from junior and more hard-core members who appear to oppose negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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[Dawn] The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... on Saturday expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... at the worst Israeli-Paleostinian violence in three years which left 14 Paleostinians dead, calling on both sides to restore calm.
A statement from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the bloc "is following with concern the recent escalation of violence in Gazoo and in the south of Israel".
"I very much deplore the loss of civilian life. It is essential to avoid further escalation and I urge all sides to re-establish calm." Medics said Saturday that Israeli air strikes on the Gazoo Strip killed 14 Paleostinians, including a Death Eater group chief, after Paleostinian Death Eaters fired at least 90 rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel, according to an army spokeswoman.
The Paleostinian barrage maimed four people, one of them seriously, Israeli military sources said.
Israeli media said that three of the casualties, including the badly maimed man, were agricultural labourers from Thailand working on a farm near the border with Gazoo.
One of the retaliatory air strikes killed the head of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), Zohair al-Qaisi, and fellow member Mahmud Hanani, the ultra-hardline Death Eater group said.
Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , said the strikes also killed 10 of its members.
La Belle France also called for restraint and a return to calm in a statement issued by foreign ministry front man Bernard Valero.
Gay Paree was "greatly concerned by the new episode of violence in Gazoo and southern Israel," especially as civilians were at risk, the statement said.
"We condemn the firing of rockets and the humanitarian consequences of this violence and deplore the civilian casualties," it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] The ruling Pakistain People's Party's (PPP) Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday said that the use of public funds to undermine democracy was akin to treason, DawnNews reported.
The federal minister was referring to the case being heard by the Supreme Court relating to the doling out of money to politicians by the ISI in the 1990s.
"Conditions could never be bleak if institutions worked in accordance with the constitution," she said. "The Asghar Khan petition has brought out the truth from history. The handing out of money to political parties was an act of treason against the state."
"The court has already unveiled the faces. It shall now punish them," she added.
The information minister also requested the SC to make Roedad Khan a respondent in the case, saying Khan had forced Younus Habib, then head of Mehran Bank, to open fake cases against President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... The SC has said that the proceedings of the case, popularly dubbed by the media as the 'Mehrangate scandal', would now solely focus on the roles played by former army chief Gen (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg, former ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani and Younus Habib.
Habib has submitted a statement in court, saying that former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Aslam Beg, Durrani and Roedad Khan had forced him to arrange funds for anti-PPP politicians before the elections in 1990.
An affidavit submitted in court by Durrani, which details the amounts of money handed out to different politicians, alleges the Pakistain Moslem League -- Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... received Rs3.5 million from the then ISI head.
Awan today also remarked that the Sharif brothers had a habit of frequenting the SC.
"The Sharif brothers should also present themselves in the Supreme Court now and answer the allegations placed against them," she added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The title immediately brought to mind Barry.
Posted by: kia ||
03/11/2012 7:43
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George Soros.
His agents have been expelled from no fewer than five countries to date for trying to undermine their democratic governments, so that Soros could become the power behind the throne of a puppet government.
[An Nahar] Russia on Saturday said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear to the U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy for Syria Kofi Annan that Moscow is opposed to "crude interference" from the outside into Syrian internal affairs.
"A particular emphasis was placed on the inadmissibility of trampling on international legal norms, including through crude interference in Syria's internal affairs," the foreign ministry said after a meeting earlier between Lavrov and Annan in Cairo.
Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Syria amid Western and Arab-led efforts to pile pressure on Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... 's regime.
The Arab League committee on Syria -- comprising Egypt, Sudan, Oman, Algeria and Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi -- met at the organization's headquarters ahead of a wider meeting of Arab top diplomats and Lavrov.
Lavrov, who arrived on Friday, has already met with the foreign ministers of Soddy Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, an Arab diplomat told AFP.
The talks at the vaporous Arab League come as Annan arrived in Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... for crucial talks with Assad.
The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... says that well over 7,500 people have died in the year-long crackdown on dissent that has seen an intensive assault by government forces on protest cities such as Homs.
Syria was suspended from the Arab League in November.
Russia said on Friday it opposed an "unbalanced" Washington-backed U.N. draft resolution on Syria because it called on the government only to end violence but did not mention the rebels.
Russia and China have previously blocked two U.N. initiatives because they singled out Assad for blame.
World powers have been under pressure from Moscow to tone down their condemnation of Assad's regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Ines Fernandez Ortega has been seeking justice for a rape she has maintained was perpetrated by Mexican Army soldiers ten years ago this month.
The case was presumably closed last week when Mexican Secretario de Gobernación (SEGOB) or interior minister, Alexandro Poire publicly apologized on behalf of the government of Felipe Calderon Hinojosa for the assault.
In nearly every case when government officials offer an apology to groups of individuals for past grievances, it is for grievances in which the facts are undisputed and sometimes when, aside from compensation, it is the only thing a government can offer. Perpetrators of human rights atrocities who have passed on cannot be brought to justice because they have died and their families cannot be held liable.
The rape case of Ines Fernandez Ortega matches none of these cases, yet despite that, an apology is the only semblance of justice that can be offered by the Mexican federal government, in or out of court.
Continued on Page 49
UN envoy Kofi Annan Former Secretary General of the UN, father and benefactor of Kojo...
met with Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad The Scourge of Hama... on Saturday in Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... during a high-profile international mission to mediate an end to the country's yearlong conflict, even as activists reported fresh shelling by regime forces that sent families fleeing for safety in the northern province of Idlib. Thick black smoke billowed over the area.
The state-run news agency ...and if you can't believe the state-run news agency who can you believe?... SANA reported that talks between Assad and Annan had begun but there were no further details on the meeting, aimed at a halting violence that began with crackdowns on mostly peaceful protests but appears to be transforming into a civil war.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the government was shelling the Idlib region after tanks moved toward the area in recent days.
There was no independent confirmation, but smoke rose into the sky behind some apartment buildings, according to an News Agency that Dare Not be Named team in the area.
Some families were seen fleeing the violence, clutching their belongings, or taking shelter.
Military reinforcements have been pouring into Idlib for days, including dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, activists said. There have been concerns Idlib would be the focus of an offensive following the government recapture of the rebel-held district of Baba Amr in Homs after a bloody, monthlong siege.
The latest diplomatic mission to end the Syrian crisis has faced stumbling blocks even before it began, as the opposition rejected Annan's calls for dialogue with Assad's regime Friday as pointless and out of touch after a year of bloodshed.
The dispute exposes the widening gap between opposition leaders who say only military aid can stop President Bashir al-Assad's regime, and Western powers who fear more weapons will exacerbate the conflict.
Annan's visit marks a new international push for peace nearly a year after protesters erupted into the streets to demand Assad's ouster, inspired by Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
Since then, the regime has dispatched snipers, tanks and civilian gunnies to crush dissent.
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#1
He continues to contribute, but frankly, is operating outside of his comfort zone. Internatinal politics and global confilct are bereft of challenge and a bore to him. His real love and expertise is found in lunar modeling and differential equations.
#2
His manager rates him a 90 on potential, but a mere 50 on execution of his current project. A lateral transfer is recommended, preferably a project of a more technical nature with less intensive interaction required.
I don't know if that's what you had in mind, Besoeker, but it sounded like a management rating to me.
A sessions court granted on Saturday interim pre-arrest bail to two sons of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... Chief Minster Nawab Aslam Raisani in a case pertaining to rioting and beating up of some coppers.
The two sons of CM Raisani --Yadgar Raisani and Rais Raisani -- through their counsel moved their pre-arrest bail applications before Additional District and Sessions Judge (south) Abdul Razzaq, who granted them bail against surety bonds of Rs50,000 each till March 22.
The court directed the suspects to appear in court on the next date for confirmation of the bail or otherwise.
The police booked the suspects along with their 15 to 20 accomplices and claimed that they, allegedly under the influence of alcohol and armed with weapons, arrived at an intersection on Khayaban-e-Shaheen in Defence Housing Authority in the early hours of March 2, stopped passing cars and started thrashing male motorists. Some coppers approached them, but they also allegedly attacked them and snatched their weapons.
A case (FIR 86/2012) was registered under Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharging his duty), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 337/A (punishment for shajjah) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistain Penal Code at the Darakshan cop shoppe.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Dawn] At least 145 people are missing and "presumed dead" after an avalanche hit a village in Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province last week, the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... said Saturday.
Afghan officials had earlier Saturday put the corpse count from the March 4 series of avalanches in Badakhshan's Shekay district at 56.
The UN said an avalanche in the area claimed 50 lives and warned of severe flooding over coming weeks due to melting snow.
Afghanistan's harshest winter in 15 years has claimed scores of lives, with the avalanches taking the toll to more than 90 in Badakhshan alone, according to officials.
"Access to Dispay village is possible only by road from neighbouring Tajikistan but has been severely hampered by snow-blocked roads", said UN's Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan in a statement.
"Helicopter access is not possible as there is a high risk of triggering further avalanches."The Geneva-based Agha Khan Foundation, the UN Food Programme and the US embassy have donated food and medicines to the affected families.
"This tragedy is likely to be one of many in the near future. Heavy snows will result not just in avalanches but also, in a few weeks' time, severe flooding in many parts of the country", said Humanitarian Coordinator, Michael Keating.
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The deployment will be the ship's 22nd. Following its return to Virginia in the fall, tens of thousands are expected to be on hand for a deactivation ceremony Dec. 1 that President Barack Obama has been invited to attend.
The following summer, Enterprise will be towed to the shipyard where it was built in nearby Newport News so its nuclear fuel can be removed, a process that will take until 2015. What remains of the ship after that will then be taken to Washington state so it can be scrapped.
The ship, among the first to respond after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won't be turned into a museum like some other carriers. Crews have to cut large holes in the vessel to remove the nuclear fuel, and it would be too expensive to repair, said Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, the Enterprise's public affairs officer.
#1
...Sadly, there's no way around this especially as Enterprise's reactors - ancient Westinghouse A2Ws - are not in good shape and have had some problems in recent years that would absolutely preclude any possibility of opening her up as a museum.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/11/2012 7:47
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#2
Well,
Is it too late to sink the Enterprize in the Iranian part of the straits of hormuz with the old reactor primed for meltdown ?
That would give the mullahs a foretaste of things to come and a little whiff of their own medicine.
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 8:03
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#3
Would they sink her as a reef?
Posted by: john frum ||
03/11/2012 8:15
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#4
tree huggers would probably bitch abput it being a reef since it had nuke reactors during service and scap metal is too high.
Posted by: chris ||
03/11/2012 10:25
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#5
That's a good argument for sinking her as a reef, chris. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/11/2012 10:29
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#6
So why spend all the $$ for that really long tow to WA? aren't there other shipyards or breaker's yards closer??
Or perhaps it could founder under mysterious circumstances and become that unscheduled reef....
#7
Unfortunately nuclear ships cannot be used for reefs as the enhanced radiation in their steel is too high.
The Russians dumped expended nuclear reactors in the Arctic ocean along with a huge amount of radioactive waste. The Swedes about had a heart attack over it when they found out.
There was even a suggestion that the US could take one of its overbuilt Los Angeles class submarines that it was mothballing, and instead de-mil it, give it a bottom hatch like the Seaview, and use it to entomb such things with a huge amount of underwater concrete, working in concert with a surface cargo ship.
It would be noisy as hell underwater, but it would no longer need to be stealthy, so would mostly run on the surface.
#11
As one ENTERPRISE ends, the technology for another develops ... ...???
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > [Space.com] USAF X37B MARKS ONE YEAR IN ORBIT | AIR FORCE'S MYSTERIOUS SPACE-PLANE SURVIVES ONE YEAR IN ORBIT.
The Brits still have their britches/panties in a wad oer the costs + need for the new QE-class CVF - I STILL WOULD RANTHER SEE THE US GIVE THEM THE ENTERPRISE ANDOR A NIMITZ(S) THAN TO SEE 'EM SUNK AS REEFS. I imagine the USDOD-Navy would prolly choose a NIMITZ as testbed for all-purpose, BattleSpace-centric "Motherships".
#12
Sure got Our money's-worth outta that big, hot puppy. Not even a china syndrome meltdown over the decades...How could that even be?
It's just not "fair"!
[Dawn] RAWALPINDI: A mother seeking police help in arresting the killers of her two daughters fell victim to the brutality of police here on Saturday.
Talking to news hounds, Shahjehan Begum alleged that her daughters Saima Naz and Saira Naz were killed and another was injured by one Asad in a hostel in the limits Civil Lines police on June 20, 2011.
She said she filed a murder case with the Civil Lines police but the killer was still on the lam.
"Today I along with my daughter Sobia and a relative Sher Khan tried to meet CM Shahbaz Sharif and request him to provide me justice, but SHO Raja Shakeel jugged us in a room and tortured us," she said.
The police jugged the complainants in a room built at Gate number 1 for security guards and freed them after the chief minister left the venue.
Ms Shahjehan alleged that the killer was being protected by some influential people in the city. The chief minister reportedly took notice of the incident and directed the RPO to arrest the killer and submit a report to his office. Besides, he also invited Ms Shahjahan to the chief minister office in Lahore.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
i m sure this lady will never get the justice becaz one of pml n leader is providing the shelter to the killer and his family.i think sahbaz shareef the khadme ala should resign on this falure. Shame on u pml n leaders.
[An Nahar] An 18-year old teenager who claimed that he was kidnapped in the Baalbek village of Brital confessed that he planned his kidnapping with two other accomplices in order to split the ransom, the National News Agency reported.
Brilliant kid, brilliant. Rather like Dr. Evil holding the world hostage for one million dollars...
The two partners demanded the teenager's parents to pay a $100,000 ransom to win his release.
The teenager A. M. told Sherlocks at Baalbek cop shoppe that he faked his abduction after agreeing with H. J., 27, and A. A., 29, to split the ransom.
But the teenager admitted that he changed his mind and returned home.
The two accomplices were jugged and confessed their plot, the NNA said.
On Wednesday, a teenager who was kidnapped in Baalbek has been released by his captors, who demanded $200,000 for his release.
Ali Ahmed al-Mukh, 16, was kidnapped by gunnies on the Ain Bourday road in Baalbek in eastern Leb.
Last week, another teenager was released by his captors after four days of captivity.
Ziad Khaled Abou Esper, 16, was released on the road leading to the town of al-Jamaliya, north of Baalbek.
The kidnappers had demanded a $150,000 ransom after seizing him from his father's cow farm in the town of Adous.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
Uh, and this is news just why, exactly?
I, for one; could care less about these Anti-Christian, fecal-baggers.
[Dawn] Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. Saturday said that foreign hands were involved in the Kohistan ...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns.... bus firing incident.
Talking to newsmen here after attending a meeting on law and order situation, Malik claimed that those involved in the incident have been identified, adding that the culprits will be brought to justice at all costs.
"The list of identified persons will be handed over to local Jirgas who will hand over the culprits to the security forces," he said.
Malik said nobody will be allowed to play with the law and order situation of Gilgit-Baltistan.
He said the number of check posts will be increased in the area to maintain peace.
The minister rejected attribution of the Kohistan incident to sectarianism.
He also announced compensation of two million rupees each for the bereaved families of those killed in firing incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#2
I can well imagine an Indian Special Forces manned almost exclusively by Sikhs. Eek. Maybe they could do like Britain, and create a regiment of Gurkha SF. That would show the Pakis a little of the old ultraviolence.
#3
ION DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > INDIA/MUSLIMS: MUSLIMS LAD BEHIND OTHER MINORITIES [Castes] IN INDIA ACCORDING TO A REPORT [NYT].
ARTIC = ...
> "Reservation" is important for Musims.
> Muslims believe they have been treated as pariahs despite their historical support for India's independence from Great Britain back in 1947.
> Activists desire Muslim-only/specific GOVT.JOBS + EDUCATION in order to help uplift their prestige + achieve long-sought "social justice".
[Dawn] OVER the years, despite repeated bouts of military dictatorship, Pakistain has remained a relatively open society. Even with spooks running around unchecked, people have expressed themselves pretty openly, both privately and publicly.
In large measure, this has been due to the incompetence of our bureaucracy. Few cops and spies are very enthusiastic about surveillance duties. More often than not, they file their poorly written reports that go unread, and pile up in some dusty government archives, never to see the light of day.
But all this is about to change. According to an international tender floated by this government, it is aiming to acquire technology that will enable it not just to block websites at will, but to read our emails and monitor all Internet traffic.
As we know, computers don't get tired, or wander off for a cup of tea. George Orwell wrote about a technological dystopia in his futuristic novel 1984 where citizens were constantly watched. Pakistain seems about to leapfrog into the world of Big Brother while still at a pre-industrial stage.
This ham-handed attempt at censoring and controlling the Internet has drawn derision from all those concerned about the free flow of information. While this initiative professes to protect us from pornographic and blasphemous content, the reality is that it seeks to surreptitiously invade our privacy.
Over the last 15 years or so, we have become increasingly dependent on the Internet for communications, information and entertainment. Twitter and Facebook are used by millions of young Paks to keep in touch with family and friends, and have opened up a whole new world. This world is about to change as petty officials can cut users off, or read private messages, at will.
Ironically, this crude attempt to control and censor the Internet is being financed by the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Fund. This fund is fed by a percentage taken from the revenues of telecom firms, and was intended to finance scholarships in information technology, as well as research and development. It was never meant to pay foreign companies to help the government in censoring the content on our screens.
A year or so ago, there was a gauche attempt to curb emails and text messages that ridiculed the government and its leaders.
Articles denouncing the initiative appeared around the world. Hopefully, this effort will meet the same fate. And if Sana Saleem's campaign succeeds, it well might. This brave young blogger, and founder of 'Bolo Bhi' [Speak Up], has been tireless in her attempt to block the government's crude censorship policy. [Readers can follow her campaign at www.bolobhi.org.]
She has been widely quoted in the international media, and has approached Western firms manufacturing equipment suitable for the government's requirements to boycott the $50m tender. Many of them have agreed not to bid. Reporters Without Borders, the Gay Paree-based organization, has written to the prime minister, urging him to withdraw this decision.
The argument that by blocking access to many websites, the government will shield us from 'indecent' content, does not hold up to scrutiny. The reality is that there are millions of sites out there. Short of completely cutting Pakistain off from the wired world, it is not possible to insulate us from the free-wheeling anarchy of the Internet.
Those who created the system that now connects hundreds of millions across the globe always intended it to be a free and open space. This freedom gives it the energy that has placed it at the centre of communications and instant information. If the government blocks one site, a dozen or more pop up. And those who know how can easily get around crude artificial barriers erected by insecure states.
This government's model is the Great Firewall of China that routinely blocks thousands of websites the government deems unsuitable, or will damage the Communist Party's reputation. But China is a dictatorship, while we claim to be a democracy. In a free society, citizens have the right to privacy as well as access to uncensored information.
True, these rights are not absolute, and in certain security-related cases the state has the authority to place individuals under electronic surveillance. But this intrusion is seldom unchecked and in democracies it normally requires judicial approval. For an elected Pak government to acquire these totalitarian tools is inexplicable.
However, the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... this latest attempt at controlling information is in line with what we have seen recently. When the BBC aired 'Secret Pakistain', a two-part documentary that purported to establish the close links between the ISI and the Taliban, the country's cable service providers blocked the British channel. Thus, many Paks no longer have access to this widely respected news service. To imagine that Pakistain's cable operators were so outraged by the documentary that they independently decided to cut off the BBC is to miss what our intelligence agencies have been up to for years. And there are no prizes for guessing which agency is behind the BBC ban.
Then there was the court-directed blocking of Facebook that cut millions of Paks off from their favourite social networking site. Protests in the media led to its withdrawal. Gen Musharraf, too, attempted to gag the media, but even shooting the messenger could not save him at the end.
Insecure leaders and governments are the ones that try the hardest to censor news and keep an eye on their citizens. On the pretext of safeguarding public morality, they seek to control the free flow of information.
Despite our loud and raucous claims to piety, a survey found that the highest number of hits at pornographic websites originated from Pakistain. Erecting a firewall is unlikely to change this reality in a society where hypocrisy is a way of life.
It is true that many websites carry objectionable material. While researching my book, I trawled through a large number of jihadi websites that were shocking in their calls to violence. And yet I would not advocate that they be blocked or taken down.
After all, nobody forced me to access them.
And ultimately, this is what free choice is about: the ability to decide what to read or watch is central to any democracy. As long as I am not hurting anybody, I should be at liberty to log on to any site I wish to without some petty official deciding it isn't good for me. So would the government please save this $50 million, and spend it on something more worthwhile?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
ION YOUTUBE> [Fox News Video] FBI FIRECTOR [Robert Mueller] DEFERS TO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT [AG Holder] ON KILLING OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ON US SOIL.
[Dawn] At least six people were killed Saturday in a day-long shootout between Death Eaters and government troops in Pakistain's troubled northwestern tribal region, officials said.
The fighting took place as Pak troops, backed by helicopter gunships, carried out a search operation around the town of Bara in the lawless Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan.
"At least two paramilitary soldiers were martyred and four non-combatants were killed in the day-long shootout," Khyber's deputy administration chief Syed Ahmed Jan told AFP. He added that seven Death Eaters were killed in the fighting.
A senior paramilitary official said the Death Eaters belonged to the Taliban-linked Laskhar-e-Islam group that is led by warlord Mangal Bagh ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... .
Independent verification of the incident is not possible as access to the area is restricted by the military.
Some 18,000 people decamped their homes in Khyber in October last year amid fears of a fresh onslaught of fighting between the army and Islamist Death Eaters linked to the Pak Taliban.
Pakistain's seven tribal districts near the Afghan border are rife with homegrown Islamic fascistiand are strongholds of Taliban and al Qaeda operatives.
Militants have killed more than 4,800 people across Pakistain since government troops raided an krazed killer mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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[An Nahar] Syrian troops stormed the rebel stronghold of Idlib on Saturday after shelling the city for several days, confirming fears of an assault after another rebel redoubt was overrun last week, monitors said.
The attack came as peace envoy Kofi Annan was in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... seeking an end to a year-long crackdown on dissent that has cost an estimated more than 8,500 lives, holding "positive" talks with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
"Troop carriers entered the city of Idlib as festivities raged" between the army and rebels, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, Rami Abdel Rahman, told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The army heavily shelled Idlib before sweeping into the city, where 15 non-combatants were killed, Abdel Rahman said, adding that dozens were maimed and 150 locked away by regime forces.
Earlier, he said 16 rebels were killed in an army ambush as they headed for Idlib and that four regime soldiers died in a separate incident in the province.
The Observatory said 62 persons -- mostly soldiers and rebels -- were killed across Syria, 55 of them in Idlib province.
Local activist Milad Fadl said Saturday's "bombardment began at 5 am (03:00 GMT). The shelling is very, very heavy."
Abdel Rahman said "it's the heaviest bombardment since troop reinforcements were sent to Idlib earlier this week."
Regime forces have been massing around the city for days to root out rebel Free Syrian Army fighters who are entrenched in the province of the same name.
On Friday, armored units surrounded the hilly district of Jabal al-Zawiya in the province, stormed one village and attacked others, reportedly killing scores of people.
Abdel Rahman said the army was hunting down rebels because "the largest number of deserters is in Jabal al-Zawiya."
Activists had expressed fear that Idlib could suffer the same fate as the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which was stormed by government troops on March 1 after a month of shelling and in which an estimated 700 people died.
Just hours before the assault, President Bashir al-Assad promised Annan that he would back any "honest" peace bid but warned dialogue would fail if "terrorist groups" remained.
And in Cairo, Russian and Arab foreign ministers called for an end to the violence "whatever its source."
Syrian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said there was a "positive atmosphere" to the meeting between Assad and the former U.N. chief, on his first visit since being named United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... -Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy on the conflict.
"Syria is ready to bring success to any honest bid to find a solution," the official SANA news agency quoted Assad as telling Annan.
But "no dialogue or political process can succeed as long as there are terrorist groups that are working to sow chaos and destabilize the country by attacking civilians and soldiers," he added.
A U.N. statement said Annan had expressed "grave concern" to Assad over the crackdown and "urged the president to take concrete steps to end the current crisis."
The former U.N. secretary general "put several proposals on the table regarding stopping the violence and the killing, access for humanitarian agencies and the ICRC, release of detainees and the start of an inclusive political dialogue," said a U.N. statement.
It gave no details, but said Annan, who will meet Assad again on Sunday, had described his first talks as "candid and comprehensive."
Annan has the support of Damascus allies Beijing and Moscow and his mission has been welcomed by both the Syrian government and the opposition.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
Hama - sandwiched between Idlib in the north and Homs in the south - with over 4x the population of Idlib, and the traditional home base of the Muslim Brothers, is the real stronghold. It's possible that the Syrian government is trying to cut off reinforcements and supplies from Idlib, just before government troops storm Hama. I would expect a vigorous defense of Idlib by the rebels, with reinforcements coming from both Aleppo and Hama.
[An Nahar] At least 39 gunnies and four soldiers were killed Saturday in a day-long shootout in Pakistain's troubled northwestern tribal region, officials said.
The fighting took place as Pak troops, backed by helicopter gunships, carried out a search operation around the town of Bara in the lawless Khyber tribal district bordering Afghanistan.
"Four paramilitary soldiers were martyred and seven others were maimed in today's fighting," a security bigshot told Agence La Belle France Presse.
"At least 39 gunnies were also killed," he said.
Four civilians also died when a mortar shell hit a house, a government official said.
"Four non-combatants were killed in the day-long shootout when a mortar shell hit their house," Khyber's deputy administration chief Syed Ahmed Jan told AFP.
It was not immediately clear who fired the mortar shell, he said.
A senior paramilitary official said the gunnies belonged to the Taliban-linked Laskhar-e-Islam group that is led by warlord Mangal Bagh. ...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... Independent verification of the incident is not possible as access to the area is restricted by the military.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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#1
At this point, if the Paks want to put an end to this b.s., they should "clear out the brothel", just driving everyone who lives there out, giving their land to settlers who will defend it when the recalcitrants try to return.
It's not ethnic cleansing if everybody is of the same general ethnic group.
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The spokesman for UN special envoy for the peace process Robert Serry on Saturday expressed concern about the escalation in cross border violence between Gaza and Israel.
"We're very concerned about this latest escalation," Richard Miron told Ma'an. "We call on both sides to exercise maximum restraint, and we deplore the fact that civilians are paying the price for this violence."
He added: "This proves that the situation in Gaza is very fragile and very unsustainable." Well, I can see why they made him the special watchacallit to the whatever...
Fifteen people in Gaza have been killed since Friday, with 26 people injured. Eight people in southern Israel have been injured by rocket fire, the Israeli army said.
#2
If you live in a glass house - dont throw stones !
High time for full force retailation against the Gazooans. ( and the hell with the baby ducks, fluffy kittens, baby crockodiles and other collaterals).
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 7:11
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#3
My condolences to the US envoy.
This is a classical example of what happens when you try to impose democracy on stone-age moslems.
Well Mr. Envoy, wait till you see what the new Bamby style Moslem Brotherhood "Democrats" in Egypt will do after being supported and abetted by Champ's impotence.
Repeat slowly after me " there is no god but Allah and Mohamed his prophet...."
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
03/11/2012 7:33
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#4
"Tut-tut. Oh, dear! Please pass the shrimp cocktail"
As for "fragile and unsustainable", I say "bushwa!". This has been going on for half a century or so.
SANAA: Air strikes launched by the Yemeni air force on positions of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the south killed 10 terrorists militants including some number threes of their leaders, a government source said on Saturday.
The raids against the terrorists militants, who have expanded their base in southern Yemen during the months of turmoil that eventually ousted the president, targeted Bayda, about 130 km (80 miles) southeast of the capital Sanaa, late on Friday.
The source said: Ten Al-Qaeda terrorists elements, including leading number threes members, were killed in three raids by warplanes during a gathering of these elements in the governorate of Bayda.
A number of vehicles and cars used by Al-Qaeda were also destroyed, the source said, adding the terrorists militants gathered were carrying equipment and weapons to launch attacks in the governorate.
Residents in Bayda said the fighter planes had raided the western outskirts of the town, where the Ansar Al-Shariaterrorists militants, who have been fighting army forces since mid-2011, had been based.
Flames and smoke could be seen rising from the area, one resident told Reuters by telephone.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/11/2012
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Pyongyang, March 10 (KCNA) -- Meetings were held in various cities and counties of the DPRK on March 9 and 10 at which the servicepersons and people vowed to wipe out through a merciless sacred war the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors who hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK.
That would be the Lee Mung Bak who has been president of Souh Korea since 2008, one presumes. He's taken a stronger line against North Korea than his predecessors, which has earnt him a periodic two minutes of hate since last year.
At the meetings the statement of the spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army was read out to be followed by speeches.
The speakers said they would never tolerate the group of traitors who insulted the tear of sorrow shed by the people of the DPRK mourning the demise of the father of the nation and made a mockery of the idea and social system of the DPRK.
They noted those who hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK even a bit will find no air to breathe in the world in the face of the sacred war of retaliation of all servicepersons and people of the DPRK who have achieved the single-minded unity stronger than nuclear weapons under the leadership of the peerlessly great men.
The enraged loud voices of the participants could be heard at the meetings that they would immediately turn out in the war of destroying the Lee group of traitors with the arms of Mt. Paektu if an order is issued.
They said they would totally finish off the heinous traitor to the nation Lee Myung Bak and other human scum including Kim Kwan Jin and Jong Sung Jo, thus turning the filthy den of the rabid dogs into their graves.
They called on the party members, workers and servicepersons to mercilessly annihilate the war-like forces and accomplish the historic cause of national reunification, the cherished desire of the nation.
#2
Since all that food is going to their military, it seems only right an proper that there be food additives in it that cause both permanent fatigue and infertility.
[Dawn] Six members of a pro-government tribal militia (Aman Lashkar) were killed when they were ambushed by gun-hung tough guys in the Dera Bugti area of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... on Saturday, security officials said.
According to sources, volunteers of the militia were travelling to Phelaogh from Sui when attacked by the armed gun-hung tough guys positioned on the hills. Six volunteers were struck down in their prime while several got injured, who were taken to a nearby hospital later.
Security forces cordoned off the area and initiated a search operation after the attack. However, today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... no arrests have been reported so far.
The Baloch separatists and Talibs are active in the province, and have been blamed for such violence in the past.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The military has warned that there are remnants of Al-Shabaab ... the Islamic version of the old Somali warlord... on Kenyan borders and urged members of the public to remain vigilant.
Speaking at a media briefing on Saturday, Colonel Cyrus Oguna said the KDF are more than 100 km into Somalia and will continue with pacification operations.
The military front man said the Al-Shabaab remnants were out to cause disharmony between the forces and the local community, and he urged local residents to notify security agents about suspicious people in their villages and those visiting refugee camps.
Deputy Police Spokesman Charles Owino also asked Kenyans to be vigilant as the threat from the remnants was real, but he added that security agents were alert.
Col Oguna said that no KDF casualties had been reported in the past week. He said the Somali forces of Evil were at their weakest point as characterised by their uncoordinated fights.
He said on Monday in the northern sector at Gerille, KDF killed three Al-Shabaab forces of Evil and recovered five AK-47 rifles and communications equipment.
The following day, there was an air strike on Hayo where four technical vehicles, food rations and an ammunition depot were destroyed and several fighters were believed to have been killed.
The following day, within the southern border town of Diff along the Somalia-Kenya border, two Al-Shabaab members were killed and three AK-47 rifles and several rounds of ammunition recovered.
On Thursday the KDF conducted an ambush at Agilbax, a logistics depot south of Afmadow, and killed six forces of Evil and maimed several others. On the same day, six members of Al-Shabaab within Gerille area defected, handing over their six rifles and three Pulemyot Kalashnikov machine guns (PKM).
On Friday, the KDF conducted a cordon and search operation in the process of pacification where four forces of Evil were tossed in the clink and nine AK-47 rifles, 16 AK-47 magazines, 381 rounds of ammunition, three PKMs and two pieces of communications equipment recovered.
Col Oguna also said KDF soldiers currently serving in Somalia will be replaced in the next three months to allow them to be with their families. "However, by candlelight every wench is handsome... within that period, we may have fresh troops injected into the mission area," he said.
He added that serious infighting between Al-Shabaab's Somali and imported muscle was ongoing and that KDF has cut off the lucrative but illegal trade that brought counterfeit goods to Nairobi and the Dadaab region.
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[Dawn] They are no more. The clutches of death deprived dozens of innocent people of their right to live a long full life.
The abrupt end of life, under most violent and tragic circumstances, has turned them into numbers: 15 dead in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar's February 22, 2012, bus stand kaboom; 41 dead in Parachinar's terrorist attack; four dead in Peshawar cop shoppe attack; and five dead in Nowshera kaboom.
Their bereaved family members, friends and enemies would, though, recall them by their names, for many among newspaper readers and television viewers they have slipped into the memory databank as mere numbers.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... information minister said after the Nowshera blast that his party had lost 550 party workers in various terrorist attacks.
Mohammad Israr, Sabz Ali, Tariq, and Mohammad Hussain, all ANP workers, are the latest addition to the tally after they fall victim to the Nowshera roadside kaboom blast approximately 17 minutes after Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti was flown in a helicopter after addressing the party workers.
According to the government's tally, the country has lost 35,000 civilians. Perhaps, it requires to update its much repeated figure of 35,000 lives lost to militancy, all carrying an equal price tag of Rs300,000 in compensation for each of the victims.
Moslem and Abdullah could see only 8 and 12 springs, respectively. They might have slipped from the readers' mind who read the new stories of their death. They have been lost to the barbarity of criminal hands who planted a deadly bomb that destroyed a Peshawar bus terminal on February 22.
Their deaths did not attract reaction from the official quarters or the civil society in strongest possible words. The carnage of Parachinar, too, could not jolt the society's conscience in the manner it should have. The smoothness with which three jacket wallahs entered a heavily manned Peshawar cop shoppe exposed our vulnerabilities, but no one raised voice for naming the names for the administration's failure. The chief minister flew in and out of the Nowshera public meeting venue amidst tight
security, but what happened to Israr, Ali, Tariq, and Hussain.
No questions being asked, it seems complacency has penetrated deep into the social order.
Perhaps, the society on the lam has become prone to shocks after having suffered so many terrorist attacks during the last ten years. The killing of an X-number of people in, an every other day, terrorist attacks has, apparently, left so deep an imprint on the minds and consciousness of the many that people have started taking it as an usual happening, nothing extraordinary.
The fact, however, remains clear: they have not fallen victims to the causes of their own making. They died because of the incapacities and inefficiencies of those who are responsible and paid to protect them.
In their deaths they demand: they should not be taken as mere numbers, heads must roll, and responsibilities must be fixed to save countless others who are at risk of meeting the same sorry end in identical circumstances.
Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti and Governor Masood Kausar are expected more to do than expressing condolences. People want them to reach out to them. Extraordinary situations necessitate unusual responses from those in power. Leadership role does not give a right to govern, it requires greater responsibility. Good leaders are remembered for serving their people,
steering them out of problems.
Nothing can be more disappointing than hearing the Peshawar's top cop during these past few days. Altaf lamely said after the February 22 kaboom that such attacks could be expected anywhere since the war on terror had been going on.
He could have done better by explaining the preventive measures he has taken to thwart future attacks. Cops are viewed by people as their saviours. They are trusted for their valour, professional skills and ability to protect citizenry against all odds.People have a right to be told about the 'effectiveness' of police checkposts that have been thrown around the city to curb the terrorists' entry to the capital city. Those at the helm of affairs should accept their failure, at least.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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"I'm going to keep doing everything I can to help you save money on gas, both right now and in the future" But I'm sure as heck not going to allow a pipeline from volumnious oil in our ally Canada get to refineries in Southern "red" states! "Watch the hands, not the lips."
#3
Modern conman is action. He can do this over and over. That is the sign of a good conman. He will ask of his marks what ever he needs and they will give no matter the harm they do to themselves. When he is out of office (which I hope will be very soon) he will do more of the same. We will hear from this man for years to come. Like Jimmy Carter. BO will do far more damage to his own followers and pockets of as many people he can reach. Its like a mental illness. He can't control himself. He will never be brought to justice. Then justice itself doesn't mean the outcome is will be fair. The pointing finger. The back tilt of the head are two features that set off the alarms for myself. He is getting easier to read. He believes he is the chosen one.
#6
I'm sure he was hinting he will do everything to get the gov to pay for your gas during the next term. Just vote for him and he will try. The 1% have enough money to cover it, they must, they are rich and have few votes and you folks are poor with lots of votes.
#11
I understand 2/3 of our consumption is for transportation. So if we continue our painful reductions in transportation; hense consumption, who will look good?. The enviroment is saved. The dependency on foreign oil is reduced. I see BO taking full credit braging rights. The switch to natural gas or liquid will then be the next government program. Companies will be forced to switch. The public will be forced to switch. Cash for clunkers program but much bigger. $10/gallon for gasoline or $2.00 for gas. Yes, this is an effort to redue the whole transportation system.
The smart money is looking for this. From lightbulbs to health, government has created great wealth for a few in the know. That's why I say the big money loves the guy. In my opinion BO hasn't got a clue.
[Dawn] According to a document dated February 15, the Government of Pakistain has banned the Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ), the religious organization known previously to be operating as the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP), the BBC reported early on Saturday.
The document, which the BBC describes as a notification issued by the Interior Ministry that was not publicly announced, claims that the ASWJ was suspected to be involved in acts of terrorism in the country, therefore it was being added to the first schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
The notification by the federal ministry was sent to all provincial governments and concerned departments, claims the report.
The report further claims that Interior Minister Rehman Malik's Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. office had been contacted for a comment on the ban, but to no avail.
The ASWJ is led by its president Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, and is a key part of the Difa-e-Pakistain, or Defence of Pakistain, Council (DPC), a coalition of around 40 religious and ultra-nationalist parties.
Shouting "death to America" at a rally in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... last month, members of the DPC condemned US drone attacks and military operations in tribal areas, and warned the government against restoring NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... supply routes and granting MFN (most favoured nation) status to India.
Ludhianvi, when contacted, said that he was unaware of any such ban, adds the report.
"We are a peaceful organization," Ludhianvi was quoted as saying. "If anyone places a ban on us...they are trying to place a ban on Pakistain."
The ASWJ was formed after the government of former president General (retd) Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... banned a handful of religious parties, including the Sipah-e-Sahaba in 2002.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangwi (LeJ), another splinter group of the Sipah-e-Sahaba led by Hafiz Saeed ...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat... , has also allegedly been involved in terrorist acts, and is reported to have links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) as well.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Muslim career women in Britain are choosing to become involved in polygamous relationships because of a lack of suitable men.
Reports of an early morning explosion have again rocked Jos with many feared dead. The explosion occurred at about 10:30 am at St. Finbars Catholic Church in Rayfield, an exclusive neighborhood. It is the first major attack in that area of town which is usually heavily guarded by soldiers and the Joint Task Force (JTF).
Two men were killed in southern Yemen when a bomb they planned to use in an attack on government forces exploded accidentally late on Saturday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
[Dawn] The Human Rights Commission of Pakistain (HRCP) on Saturday expressed its concern over reports of forced conversion and marriage of Hindu girls in Sindh -- 'on average 25 cases a month' -- and urged the authorities concerned to ensure protection to the minorities.
Asif Ali 
BEIRUT: President Bashar Assad told UN/Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on Saturday that no political solution was possible in Syria while terrorist groups were destabilizing the country.
Over 100 rockets and mortar shells fall on Israel since Friday; school canceled in all towns between 7-40 km from 
Quartet
WASHINGTON: A 13,600 kg bunker buster bomb designed to smash through some 65 meters of concrete before exploding is a "great weapon" that could be used by US forces in a clash with Iran over its nuclear program, an Air Force general said late on Thursday.
Brig Ali Khan, being tried in military court over treason charges and alleged links to attacks on Pakistain Army facilities, has been shifted from Sialkot to Rawalpindi due to serious illness, sources told DawnNews on Saturday.
KABUL: Five Taleban detainees held at the US Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent peace process, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said on Saturday.
Hundreds of 
Najib Miqati
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli warplanes continued to strike several targets across the 
Many people who resisted militancy in their native areas mainly in 
Nigeria on Saturday quizzed the alleged kidnappers of two Westerners killed during a failed British-Nigerian rescue bid amid a diplomatic row between London and Rome over the operation.
Goodluck Jonathan
Maulana selling Islam
The ruling Pakistain People's Party's (PPP) Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday said that the use of public funds to undermine democracy was akin to treason, DawnNews reported.
Nawaz Sharif
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
UN envoy Kofi Annan
A sessions court granted on Saturday interim pre-arrest bail to two sons of 
RAWALPINDI: A mother seeking police help in arresting the killers of her two daughters fell victim to the brutality of police here on Saturday.
[Dawn] Interior Minister 
OVER the years, despite repeated bouts of military dictatorship, Pakistain has remained a relatively open society. Even with spooks running around unchecked, people have expressed themselves pretty openly, both privately and publicly.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
SANAA: Air strikes launched by the Yemeni air force on positions of Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in the south killed 10 
[Dawn] They are no more. The clutches of death deprived dozens of innocent people of their right to live a long full life.
Pervez 
